Into the Fire
by DD42
Summary: It was supposed to be a simple job; get in, get out, get paid and go home. But when are things ever that simple? And for one team of mercenaries, their simple job will drag them to the world of Earthland and into the battle of a lifetime that they never would have imagined possible. There is however, something familiar about these men. (AU/Tartarus Arc).*RATING MAY CHANGE*
1. Chapter 1

_**Into the Fire**_

A/N: Hello everyone and welcome back! This is my fourth, full scale fanfic and I am happy to finally bring it out of development hell. For those of you who are not familiar with me, I welcome you and hope you enjoy the first of many chapters to come. For those of you who are familiar with me, I welcome you to another adventure into the Fairy Tail fan universe.

This story will be a big leap for me as a writer, in a sense. So far, my three big stories that I am working on have focused on OC's interacting with the FT cast. This story however is set during the current manga arc for the Fairy Tail; The Tartarus Arc…so spoilers ahead for those of you who are not caught up on reading the manga. I'll try to be as faithful to the manga as I can but I have to take some creative liberty as well!

At the same time however, this story will blend an alternate universe in with the main story, so I'm anxious to see if I can pull this off.

And what alternate universe is this, you're perhaps wondering? Well to put it bluntly; it's our world…well, our world in the near future. The year is 2031 and Fairy Tail, along with the other magic guilds, are Private Military Corporations.

That's right folks; a mercenary AU.

Stepping up to the plate for this endeavor are the four leading men of Fairy Tail; Natsu, Gray, Jellal, and Gajeel (each having a certain level of OOC). These four boys will find themselves stuck on Earthland and will not only have to deal with Tartarus, but their in world counterparts. And rather than magic, the boys of PMC Fairy Tail will be bringing plenty of overwhelming firepower to the party!

…Also expect multiple/hinted pairings for the characters in this story as well as harsh language, crude humor/themes and what not for all that jazz **(I may change the rating but we'll see how this goes).** It will take some time to get caught up to the current place in the story so far but I'll get there one way or another…or until the end of the story arc if that's the case.

As always, I hope you will give your honest opinion with your review and if you have any questions regarding this story feel free to ask in your review or you can send me a PM which I will either reply to in the next chapter or respond to ASAP. Just please don't be too harsh with your criticisms…there's only so much a guy can take.

P.S. DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT I'M A SAP FOR DETAILS!? Expect a lot of that to be going on for this chapter! There will be a bit of a lengthy introduction but things will pick up in pace as the chapter continues but like I said, I put heavy emphasis on detail.

_**DISCLAIMER:**_ I do not own Fairy Tail; Hiro Mashima and Kodansha Comics USA own it. If I did own Fairy Tail…well let's just say some things would be different. Any weapons, vehicles, military units, locations, and anything else in between, belong to their respective manufactures/governments and so on and so forth. In other words: don't file a lawsuit against me; I don't have the time, money or patience to put up with one! Besides, I think it should be obvious as to what I do and do not own.

So, with that out of the way; let's get cracking!

XXXX

DESCRIPTION: It was supposed to be a simple job. Get in, kill some bad guys, get out, get paid and go home. But when are things ever that simple? And for one team of private military contractors, their simple job will drag them to the world of Earthland and into the battle of a lifetime that they never would have imagined possible. There is however, something about these men…something eerily familiar.

XXXX

CHAPTER 1: Just another day…

_The Raging Bull was heavy in his hand as his fingers tightened their hold around the grip. It had always been a heavy gun, weighing in at fifty ounces of stainless steel despite having a five inch barrel; but it had never felt like this before._

_Maybe it was the emotional stress he found himself burdened with or maybe it had been the new hell he had been thrust into. Or maybe it was because he was tired; oh so very tired. His body ached, his wounds bled and his heart was beating like a jackhammer in his chest._

_It was probably a combination of everything. Probably._

_At least that's what he told himself…to avoid admitting the truth._

_Because despite how he felt on the outside and inside, on a deep emotional level; he felt calm. He felt the most calm he had ever been in his entire life._

_Why was that?_

_Considering what he was about to do, he should've been scared shitless._

…_But he wasn't._

_He reached his left hand to clutch at his heart through his battered ballistic vest. Yep, it was still pounding away but he still felt calm. He leaned his head back against whatever it was he was leaning against-a large pile of rubble or what was left of a brick wall. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose and out his mouth. He repeated the process again and again until he felt his heart beat even out._

_He let out a tired sigh as he opened his eyes._

_Had it really come to this he wondered._

_He reached his hand beneath his vest, the top brushing against his now tattered scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled up the surprisingly intact necklaces that hung around his neck._

_His dog-tags._

_A dragon pendant._

_A Celtic cross._

_They were just the way they should be._

_An accepting smile tugged at his lips._

_Yes, it had come down to this, there was no escaping it…and he knew it was the only way._

_It had to be this way._

_Letting his necklaces hang free over his vest, he swung the cylinder out of his revolver._

_The five, .454 caliber bullets were right where they should be: ready to fire. And he only had those five shots; he needed to make them count._

_He snapped the cylinder back in and used his thumb to pull the hammer back, the gun giving an audible and solid "click." He then slid his left hand in place with his right, forming a forward grip as he moved his trigger finger so that it was ready to fire._

_Slowly, carefully-almost methodically-he brought the massive revolver up and rested his forehead against the barrel jacket. The metal was refreshingly cool against his dirt, sweat and blood coated skin._

_He inhaled deeply._

_His nerves were steeled._

_His heart was calm._

_He could feel the familiar tingling of adrenaline course through his veins._

_He exhaled; he was ready._

"_Time to go." He heard himself say as he sidestepped to the edge of his cover. He carefully peeked his head out just quickly enough to confirm his target was still in place before pulling back._

_He paused, one last time, before inhaling sharply and snapping out from his cover. His gun was already raised, arms extending out as the sights lined up with the target._

_He pulled the trigger. The hammer fell. And the Raging Bull let out a terrific "BANG!"_

…And then he woke up.

With a sharp gasp of surprise, Natsu Dragneel awoke from his dream. His eyes were wide as he sharply panted for breath, a cool sweat covering his skin. It took him a minute to realize where he was. He was still in his apartment, still in his comfortable bed and his bed sheets were pushed back towards his legs.

Slowly, Natsu's eyes scanned the ceiling and the rest of the room through the darkened room. Where there had been a battlefield, there were now the familiar objects that he called his. Natsu sighed deeply in exhaustion.

"That damn dream again…second time this week. This is really getting old." Natsu grumbled as he lay his right arm across his eyes.

It had been a reoccurring dream that had been bothering him since the previous month; even more so as the month came to an end. It was really starting to wear him out but then again, that's why the energy and espresso shot were invented.

Natsu just played it off as his mind blending together with the stress of the job. But at the same time, it seemed too real to be a dream. Dare he even call it a premonition? He didn't want to tell anyone about it however, lest he run the risk of Doc. Porlyusica slapping a mark on his psyche-eval' and get him suspended from his job.

He didn't want people to think he was crazy…well, more so than he already was.

Lowering his arm and closing his eyes, Natsu relaxed back into his mattress and put his mind at ease. It was till dark out so maybe he could catch some extra sleep before his alarm-

_**BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!**_

-Natsu let out an annoyed growl and promptly slapped his hand down onto his bedside clock.

"Shit." Natsu said aloud. He didn't need to even open his eyes to see that his clock read: 04:30AM.

"Merowr." Came the sleepy voice of the other resident of the bed.

"Sorry Happy, I forgot you were here." Natsu said as the other resident raised it's had to glumly look at Natsu before yawning widely.

Under normal circumstances, the animal that was currently taking up the lower half of Natsu's bed would have scarred any sane person half to death. After all, it's not every day that one comes across a _mountain lion_ comfortably sleeping in a bed. But Natsu knew happy would never hurt him or anyone else…unless he ordered him to. Still, the big cat was too nice to be of any harm.

Natsu had owned Happy since Fairy Tail and Sabtertooth, about five years prior, had been contracted in their first non-combative venture when they had been hired by a wealthy political activist in the United States to assist the ASPCA in a nationwide program to rescue endangered animals and stop illegal trafficking of others. It had been one of the more humane jobs Natsu had undertaken as a private contractor and it had been a welcomed change in pace. Happy and four other mountain lions had been cubs when Natsu found them stuffed into a small shipping container. They were sickly, small, hungry and afraid; they had been in that crate for a while, the spoiled food and their appearances suggested as much. They all had a rare genetic disorder that had changed their fur color and that had made them exceptionally valuable, hence the smuggling.

Natsu had been careful, but when he gently picked up the blue ball of fuzz and cradled him in his arms, the cat immediately nuzzled up to Natsu and purred. He had looked so happy just to feel some form of affection.

Happy…the name stuck and after some heavy convincing with his boss and the ASPCA, Natsu had been allowed to keep Happy. Two of the cats, a vibrant green one dubbed "Frosch" and a dark red one named "Lector", had been given to Sabertooth while the other two, a snowy white cat named "Carla" and a coal black one with a crescent scar named "Pantherlily" were given to Fairy Tail.

The two had been together ever since.

Natsu lay in bed for a minute before finally resigning to his fate and hauling himself out of bed, Happy following him as he did so. Cracking his neck and back as he stood, Natsu pulled the covers up on his bed so that it would look marginally presentable before drawing the blinds on his window.

His apartment offered a wonderful view of the ocean which was still dark in the gloom but the indigo shade on the horizon contrasted against the star filled sky. The sun was slowly rising and with it, so would the rest of the islands inhabitants.

"Should probably get my ass in gear before everyone else does the same." Natsu said.

He then picked up his computer tablet from his desk, powered it up and made his way through his spacious apartment to the perfectly spaced kitchen.

He quickly whipped up himself a breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs, toast and a protein shake. He then reheated two premade slabs of T-bone steak for Happy. As he ate his meal, Natsu used his tablet to check his e-mail, his stock portfolio and the world news.

So far, he had five new e-mails. One was from _Soldier of Fortune_ magazine asking if he would consider another interview. They would pay him extra if they could get a photo shoot into the mix.

The second was from Sting Eucliffe of Sabertooth United. He and his longtime girlfriend Yukino were finally settling down and decided to tie the knot. And Natsu had been invited to the bachelor party; no exceptions. He would also be receiving a formal invitation for the wedding within the coming week.

"About freaking time," Natsu said, "first Gray and now you two. Who's next?"

The third was from Rouge Cheney, Sting's second in command. He would be arriving at Tenrou Island for the next few days later in the morning to discuss a business proposition that could possibly benefit their two organizations. He thought it was practical to give Natsu the heads up just in case Makarov started ranting and raving like he did most meetings. Also Kagura and the twins would be with him and they wanted to see Erza and him-especially the twins, who wanted to see their "Aunt Erza" and "Mister Natsu". It had been some time since they had last spoken with Natsu as well.

Natsu sighed.

"They have me there." He said. As of lately he had been avoiding most of the people he knew. It was nothing personal, he had just been in another one of his moods again.

The fourth, which was dated the previous day, was from Porlyusica reminding him that his check-up was scheduled for today and that she would kick his ass if he was late again.

And finally, the fifth which was also dated from the previous day, was from Macao Conbolt. He was wondering if Natsu would be coming to next week's poker game with the other guys.

Natsu responded accordingly to all his e-mails before switching to his portfolio. The market was up a surprising five and a half percent and he had some new shares to save, sell or trade. He made a note on his tablet to consider purchasing and then reinvesting the new stocks.

Finally there was the news.

Nothing really surprising. Australia would play host to this year's joint counterterrorism summit, Poland was making final preparations to host the 2032 Olympics, The United States, Canada and Mexico had finalized a large scale trade agreement and Ireland was well on its way to winning this year's Rugby World Cup. Natsu remembered Makarov addressing all of Fairy Tail that they had already been contracted out to assist with the summit, the Olympics and the World Cup. In other words, three consecutive fat paychecks in a row plus the bonus of some publicity and bolstering in reputation.

…Same old same old.

Natsu found himself thinking about his employer…the organization that had practically become his family. Fairy Tail, or Fairy Tail International/ Fairy Tail PMC as it was known, had taken Natsu and his foster father in when no one else would. They helped raise him, helped take care of his father and treated them as one of their own. He never forgot that…and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Sighing, Natsu shut off his tablet, cleaned his dishes and set about getting ready for his morning workout.

He made his way to the bathroom and splashed some cool water on his face and took the time to regard himself in the mirror. At twenty five years old, he was tall with broad shoulders and in tip top shape. His natural salmon pink hair was kept short, well shorter than he had kept it when he was a teenager, and spiky. A black, Uruz rune was tattooed on his left shoulder and eventually turned into a double band that interwove its way down the arm and formed a trinity knot on the top of his hand, stopping just shy of the knuckles. It had originally started out as a dare and since then Natsu had kept on adding to it.

But there were also some very noticeable changes to his appearance that always drew attention. The first, which weren't as noticeable, were his eyes; his left was emerald green and his right were cerulean blue. One would think Natsu had been born with heterochromia but on closer inspection, they would see that the white of the eye was a little too white and lacking blood vessels. And the iris had a faint glow to it. The eye was a military grade cybernetic-prosthetic; the latest model in fact. Natsu noted that when he got especially angry or frustrated, the eye tended to glow brighter. Porlyusica said it was feedback from being connected to his optic nerves but Natsu didn't understand half of what she said. It allowed him to see and that was all that mattered.

The second, most prominent change was to his right arm; it too was a military grade prosthetic. Since 2025, the field of medical prosthetics had progressed at an alarming rate and the results had been nothing short of spectacular. Although nowhere as life like as an actual, flesh and blood arm, the prosthetics were built to last. Natsu's arm was no exception. Made from a lightweight derivative of titanium alloy but retaining the strength of the metal and a combination of synthetic muscle, connective wire tendons/ligaments, hydraulic servos, and ballistic-carbon fiber mesh, the arm was state of the art. A unique feature were the special sensors in the fingertips and palm that allowed Natsu to maintain some semblance of touch.

It also helped that it increased Natsu's strength twice that of what he would be normally be able to achieve with his original arm; which was a plus, Natsu guessed. Still, after having the arm for four years, he still hadn't gotten quite used to it…and he supposed he never would.

Natsu closed his hand into a fist and then uncurled it. Yep, still felt weird.

The third and final noticeable change were the scars.

Some were new while others were old, but they dotted and crisscrossed his back, shoudlers, sides and chest. There was sever scarring where his shoulder and armpit had been, now replaced by the oval shaped disc that held the prosthetic in place, and the surgical scars where his upper and middle ribs had been injected with high strength plastic to stop them from breaking in on his lung.

And then there was his face and neck. Three diagonal scars that marred down from his hairline to his jaw while a slightly older but jagged scar ran across the right side of his neck.

Natsu starred at himself for a long time before lowering his head and sighing deeply, shaking his head as he did so.

"Can't change the past," Natsu said as he turned and walked away, "no matter how much I want to."

"What's done is done."

Natsu was taken by surprise when Happy, having finished his steaks, stood up on his hind legs and draped his front paws onto Natsu's shoulders. It was a hug, in every sense of the word.

"Merow." Happy purred as Natsu patted his cat on the back before scratching him behind the ears.

"C'mon you big fur ball, let's get going so you can go play with Carla and Lily." Natsu said as Happy's tail began to bob at the mention of the other cat's names. Especially Carla's.

Natsu quickly stripped out of the old tee-shirt and boxer shorts he had been wearing and changed into a pair of track pants, a form fitting muscle shirt and running shoes. He would do some quick stretches, go for his seven mile run and then end with calisthenics. He'd then run back home, shower, change and then be off to work.

Just like he did every morning.

"Looks like it's shipping to be another regular day." Natsu said as he looked out the window, just as the very tip of the sun was beginning to break the horizon.

"Same old, same old." He said before remembering he had forgotten his necklaces. Quickly grabbing them from his bedside and pulled them down over his head and neck.

His dog tags; standard issue.

His dragon pendant; a gift from his late foster father.

And his Celtic cross necklace…a gift from someone special.

Natsu rubbed the cross between his thumb and index finger and Happy lifted his head as he gently sniffed the metal, his ears bent slightly. The cat let out what sounded like a sad groan and Natsu sighed, tucking the necklace away.

"I know Happy, I miss her too." Natsu said before shaking his head clear and starting his workout with Happy close behind.

XXXX

_**6:30 AM**_

_**The apartment of Gajeel Redfox…**_

"_Good morning Fairy Tail and good morning Tenrou Island!"_ Two energetic voices came to life over the radio.

"_I'm Jet!"_ said the fist voice.

"_And I'm Droy!" _said the second voice.

"_And we are the Fairy DJ's; broadcasting live from Fairy Tail HQ itself!"_ the two said in unison.

"_Today is Friday, October14th, 2031,"_ Jet said, _"It's time for your daily wakeup call-"_

_**SLAM!**_

"…I hate those guys so very, very much." Gajeel Redfox said, his voice muffled from underneath the pillow as he let his hand flop down from the clock and hang from the bedside.

"Merowr." The black mountain lion said from the foot of the bed were it slept on its back.

"At least you don't have to work with them 'Lily." Gajeel said to the cat; Pantherlily.

"Be nice you two." An equally tired, but feminine voice said from Gajeel's right.

"Sorry Lev," Gajeel grumbled as he pushed himself up, "but it's the truth."

Gajeel righted himself, cracked his neck before standing up and stretching, thus making his back pop and crack. He then ran his hand through his short cropped hair before rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yeah," the woman, Levy McGarden said as she yawned before leaning up and giving Pantherlily a belly rub, "well you're truth can shove it."

Gajeel snickered.

"First time I've heard you say that shrimp," Gajeel said, "looks like I'm starting to rub off on you."

"Maybe," Levy said as she stepped out of the bed, tossing her ruffled hair to the side, "but I've never been a morning person either."

"Whatever it is, I like it." Gajeel said and earned a light punch from Levy on the shoulder. She did make an amused smile however.

"Watch it buster." Levy said playfully before stepping up to Gajeel and gently wrapping her arms around the middle of his torso, her head resting against the center of his chest. Gajeel didn't hesitate to return the embrace and craned his neck so that he could kiss Levy on the top of her head.

"Sleep well?" Gajeel asked.

"You know I always sleep well when I'm here with you and Lily." Levy replied.

"The feeling's mutual." Gajeel said.

Both adults were twenty five years old and had been members of Fairy Tail since they had been adopted by the PMC years ago. Gajeel did ground work, usually via the barrel of his machine gun while Levy worked communications and handled team deployment.

Gajeel was tall, at least six foot five, with exceptionally broad shoulders and a muscled physique. His spiky, jet black hair was cropped short to the point where it reached the tip of his ears and he had a series of silver piercings where his eye brows should've been, on the left and right side of his nose, both his ears and on his chin. His bright red eyes seemed to glow, albeit non-threateningly, in the early morning light. Currently, the heavy weapons expert was shirtless save for a baggy pair of pajama pants that adorned his legs.

Levy on the other hand was the opposite of Gajeel. She was small at around five foot five and had a lithe frame. He long blue hair reached just below her shoulder blades while two long bangs framed her face. Her hazel brown eyes were half lidded as she sighed gently against Gajeel's skin. Her chosen attire for bed was a matching orange pajama shirt and pants.

"As much as I enjoy standing here," Levy hummed, "you do realize we have to get ready or we'll get chewed out for being late."

Gajeel let out a grunt and gave Levy a wicked smile.

"If you're worried about being late, you could always join me in the shower and speed things up a bit." Gajeel said only for Levy to flick him on the nose.

"Nice try," Levy said as she pulled away, tossing her hair over her shoulder once again, "but if we were to do that, we wouldn't be out of there for at least an hour or so."

Gajeel chuckled, a shameless smirk on his face.

"It's not my fault that I enjoy a hot shower here and there." Gajeel said.

"Amongst other things." Levy said coyly. She then began walking down the hall that led to the bathroom.

"I'll be out in a bit, would you mind starting some coffee?" Levy said before closing the bathroom door.

"Twist my arm." Gajeel called back.

"Merowr." Lily said as hopped of the bed before stretching his back and then wandered over to Gajeel. Gajeel kneeled down and gently scratched Lily atop his head.

"Women," Gajeel said, "they're nothing but trouble."

Gajeel chuckled.

"But then again we always seem to be getting into trouble now don't we Lily?" Gajeel said only for the panther to lick his cheek.

Figuring that was his cat's way of saying yes, Gajeel stood and went over to the kitchen, grabbing the coffee grounds from the fridge and then setting them in the coffee pot. Levy was out of the shower by the time the pot had finished brewing. She still had her towel wrapped around her hair but was already half dressed in some clothes she had gotten from her overnight bag.

"You're turn." Levy said simply before firing up her smartphone and sipping from her coffee.

Once she got to reading something whether it be a book or the morning news, the girl was hard-pressed to pay attention to the world around her.

Knowing Levy wouldn't talk to him until he got breakfast cooking, Gajeel cracked his knuckles and went to take his shower.

XXXX

_**7:15 AM**_

_**Fullbuster apartment…**_

_Bzzzzzzz_

_Bzzzzzzz_

_Bzzzzzzz_

_Bzzzz-CLICK_

A tired sigh escaped the lips of Gray Fullbuster as he forced his eyes open to the dim light that filled the bedroom of the apartment. Blinking once and then twice, Gray picked looked at the smartphone in his hand. The alarm was still present on the screen, still telling him to rise and shine and get his ass in gear.

Gray sighed and rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling before rubbing his eyes of sleep.

"Shit…" Gray muttered, "I forgot I started work again this week. Had I known that, we wouldn't have stayed up that late."

"But do you regret it?" An equally tired voice said to his right.

Gray looked with his eyes and saw a woman with short blue hair sleepily looking at him with a gentle smile on her face. She reached out her one hand to gently caress Gray's cheek while the other hand held the bed sheet that covered their nude bodies close.

Her name was Juvia. Juvia Lockser-correction-Fullbuster.

Gray was still getting used to being a newlywed, even after three weeks.

Gray gave a sly smile and cupped Juvia's hand.

"Not really." Gray said before leaning over to kiss Juvia on the lips.

"G'Morning." Gray said as he broke the kiss.

"Morning." Juvia replied.

The two were quiet for a moment before Gray's phone buzzed again. The dark haired man sighed and picked his phone up off the floor where he had set it, shutting off the alarm as he did so.

"I suppose that means we should get up." Gray said as he kicked the cover away, swung his legs out and picked up his boxer shorts, the morning light bringing out the shadows of his muscled and battle scarred body.

"You know, I wouldn't mind waking up to this every morning." Juvia said as she watched Gray slide his shorts on.

"Enjoying the show?" Gray replied smugly.

"You know it." Juvia said before she too rose from the bed and picked up Gray's discarded long sleeved tee shirt, the shirt easily dwarfing Juvia's smaller but slim and curvaceous frame.

Gray stretched his arms over his head and noted the stacked cardboard boxes that filled the room.

"We're going to have to start unpacking this week aren't we?" Gray said as Juvia nodded.

"Unfortunately." Juvia said as she pulled her hair into a loose ponytail.

"What a pain." Gray said.

After being on honeymoon for two and a half weeks at a private island in the Caribbean, the newlyweds had returned on Tuesday and had immediately begun moving into their new apartment. They had spent Wednesday and Thursday packing most of the boxes that had been packed while they were away but had yet to set up their bed frame or unpack the boxes that filled the bedroom and a portion of the living room.

Gray sighed.

"We'll get to it this weekend. Hopefully, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I'm not assigned a contract with the others. I don't want to make you unpack all this stuff by yourself."

Juvia hugged Gray's arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Aww, my hubby is being a gentlemen and wants to help me." Juvia said in a sign song voice.

Gray rolled his eyes but smiled regardless. Having dated for three years, Gray knew Juvia's unique personality like the back of his hand and was used to her "gushing" over the little things he would do for her.

"I wouldn't think of anything less." Gray said as he fiddled with the silver cross shaped necklace that hung from his neck. It had been a wedding gift from his father; in fact it had actually belonged to him first before he passed it on to Gray just before his wedding.

"_Your mother would be so proud of you."_ Gray remembered his father telling him just before he was ushered to the alter.

Juvia noticed the slight frown on Gray's lips and gently stroked her finger across his cheek.

"What's wrong?" Juvia asked.

"Nothing…just thinking of something my dad told me that's all." Gray said.

"He's always on your mind isn't he?" Juvia said.

"Hard not to be, he always finds a way to stir up trouble one way or another."

Juvia giggled.

"You know he means well." Juvia said, "Besides, he's got Ur and Ultear looking after him and you know how they can be whenever your father does something crazy."

"I feel a disturbance in the force every time." Gray added with a shudder. Lord help whoever incurred the wrath of his stepmother and stepsister.

"…Still, you're right. My dad always put me first…so I guess the habit wore off on me."

"And I wouldn't have it any other way." Juvia added.

Gray gently kissed the top of her head.

"C'mon, let's get ready. I don't want to be too late for work today." Gray said.

An idea immediately formed in Juvia's mind and playful smirk formed on her lips.

"Well, if you're worried about being late…" Juvia seductively purred, "You and I could just shower together and speed things up."

Gray smirked.

"Why would I want to do that? You know we'd both be running late if I chose to take you up on that offer."

Juvia shrugged her shoulders and let out a mock sigh of disappointment.

"I suppose you're right." Juvia said as she turned around and sauntered over to the adjoin bathroom, putting just a little extra sway in her hips, making Gray swallow hard.

"But then again," Juvia said as she opened the bathroom door before slowly discarding Gray's shirt, "the choice is yours."

Juvia winked at her husband and stepped into the bathroom, the fan humming to life.

Gray pursed his lips for a second before quickly following if after Juvia. A minute later her giggling echoed out of the bathroom.

He _supposed_ he could be a little late and blame his and his wife's absence on oversleeping. They had just returned from a long honeymoon and weekend after all.

XXXX

_**8:00 AM**_

_**Fernandes apartment…**_

"Emma," a gentle voice said, "Emma sweetie, it's time to wake up."

The little girl, no older than six, began to stir out of her sleep as she felt her shoulder gently shaken. With a light groan, her eyes began to flutter open.

"Mhmmm." The girl, Emma said, as she began to rub her eyes.

"Come on Emma," the voice gently continued, "it's time to wake up. It's time to get ready for school."

Emma blinked again before giving her father a dopy smile.

"Good morning daddy." Emma said groggily.

Her father smiled gently and kissed his daughter on the forehead.

"Good morning my little angel." Jellal Fernandes said as he watched Emma let out a wide yawn before hopping out of bed with her stuffed Charmander Pokémon plushy in tow, her pink nightdress ruffling un-bunching from around her knees.

"Mommy already has breakfast ready so eat up and I'll fix your hair."

"M'kay." Emma said, still a little groggy.

Jellal was tall with an athletic build. His aquamarine blue hair was cut short but it was long enough that it stopped just above his eyebrow. His normally sharp and attentive brown eyes were now relaxed as he smiled down at his daughter who looked like she was still half asleep. Currently, the contractor wore a black V-neck long-sleeved shirt and a pair of denim jeans. His most distinguishing feature was the red, stylized tattoo set above and below his right eye.

His daughter taking his hand, Jellal gently guided his daughter to the kitchen of their large apartment. The crisp smell of bacon and sweet aroma of pancakes reached Emma's nose and she began to perk up.

"Look who's up." A feminine voice said.

"Mommy!" Emma said as her mother, Erza Scarlett Fernandes, set down the frying pan in her hand. She turned around just in time for Emma to hug her leg.

Erza smiled and bent down to plant a gentle kiss on her daughters head.

"How did my little angel sleep last night?" Erza asked as Emma crawled up and onto the stool next to the table. Erza set down a plate filled with the breakfast she had been cooking.

Though it wouldn't have looked like it, Emma had quite the appetite for a girl her age-especially in the mornings. Both Jellal and Erza absently minded where she put it all as Emma dug into her "Mickey Mouse" shaped pancakes.

"Good," Emma said simply as she swallowed, "Me and Charmander went on adventure again."

Jellal chuckled.

"She's quite attached to that doll." Jellal muttered to Erza as the two of them sat down at the table, both holding cups of coffee.

"You don't know the half of it," Erza said as both of them listened both to Emma and each other, "she's already looking at the Eevee, Vaporeon and Flareon plushies that are coming out next month."

Jellal slowly looked at Erza with the quintessential "What the Frack?" look on his face.

Erza smiled sheepishly.

"That's right, I keep forgetting you don't pay attention to that kind of thing." Erza said.

Jellal sighed but took Erza's hand into his.

"So long as Emma is happy, she can get as many of those dolls as she wants." Jellal said with a smile.

Erza nodded and leaned against her husband, her eyes never leaving her daughter as Emma animatedly described her dream.

"So long as we can give her a better childhood than we had, that's all that I want for her." Erza said.

Jellal simply nodded, sipping his coffee. He then took a moment to watch his little family.

Emma looked so much like her mother had when she had been that age. But instead of crimson red hair like her mother or the aquamarine of her father, Emma had a unique shade of purple colored hair. Her hair which now hung long and flowing would soon enough be tied into a simple braid while a single bang of hair framed her face, just the way she liked it.

Erza herself was tall, slender and beautiful. Simply beautiful. From her long hair which she kept in a knot to the gentle tugging of her lips when she smiled, Erza to Jellal, was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. The only thing that hadn't changed as Erza had aged was the eye patch she wore over her right eye. The eye had long since been, albeit crudely, removed and Erza had kept the patch over it for years. Doc. Porlyusica had told them that since the wound had healed over the years, it would be hard to get a prosthetic in place.

Jellal smiled to himself however.

Doc. Porlyusica was a miracle worker. She would find a way to give Erza her full sight back one way or another.

It was hard to imagine that when they had first met as children…on a war torn battlefield in a long forgotten place; amongst the thick clouds of dust, the rubble and the constant echo of machine gun fire. It was hard to imagine her as beautiful considering they had both been covered in mud, sweat, blood and God knows what else. But here they were, years later, still together, married and with a beautiful daughter. When they got married at seventeen, Jellal hadn't thought he'd live long enough for that to happen…let alone see the birth of Emma three years later.

But he had proven himself wrong.

And although his job entailed facing death every day, Jellal wouldn't have traded it for anything else. He was where he belonged. Both on the battlefield and with his family.

Jellal polished off the rest of his coffee and let out a hearty sigh just as Emma finished her breakfast with a hearty belch.

"Excuse me!" Emma said in surprise, making her parents laugh.

"C'mon silly girl, let's get you ready." Jellal said, "We don't want you to be late. And mommy and daddy have to go to work too."

"That's right, I forgot." Erza said, "There's a new batch of recruits coming in and I've been called to put them through their paces."

"Lord have mercy." Jellal said as Erza snickered wickedly, "Please, try not to break them."

"No promises." Erza said and Jellal sighed.

Erza had originally been a field operative like Jellal himself and the majority of the Fairy Tail crew. She had been a fierce fighter, always had been, and her skill with a blade had made internationally recognized.

But, after Emma had been born, Erza found that balancing out her home life and field work was proving a challenge, even for her. Jellal also had his fair share of jobs to balance out and it made it that much harder to raise Emma. So Erza had stepped down from her position in the field to stay home and raise Emma and took up a position as combat instructor and occasionally working from home. She missed working in the field but her family came first.

Jellal also did his fair share of work with Emma. Most of the time, while waiting for a job, he would care for Emma on the off days that he had and give Erza a break-especially recently. His team had been in such high demand, that is was taking quite a bit of time for the contracts to be screened and given a priority listing. That left him with down time and plenty of it.

Still, it gave him a chance to be with his wife and daughter. And in the end, that's all he wanted.

"Any idea if you have a job heading your way?" Erza asked Jellal after he had finished braiding Emma's hair and picking out her clothes for the day.

"Can't say," Jellal answered, "me and the guys have been in high demand so it's taking a while for the proper job to be allocated to us."

Erza shook her head with a smile.

"That's what you get when you boys earn the reputation as "Fairy Tail's Four Horsemen".

Jellal shrugged.

"We knew this would happen eventually. Sometimes I wonder if we're a little too good." Jellal said.

"You boys will always be needed somewhere. Don't worry, something will come up." Erza replied.

"Why'd you ask anyway?" Jellal said as Emma came out of her room, book bag in hand, "We in trouble?"

"No, I was just thinking that's all." Erza said.

Jellal arched an eye brow.

"About what?" Jellal said with a sly smirk.

Erza made a motion that she was zipping her lips.

"It's a secret," she said before turning to Emma and handing her, her lunch bag, "You all set?"

"Yep." Emma said with a nod.

"Alright then," Jellal said as he took Emma's hand and kissed Erza on the cheek, "I'll get her to school and then I'll be heading on base. I'll call if anything comes up."

"My phone will be on. And don't worry, I'll get Emma today. I'll see you later, 'kay?" Erza said.

Jellal nodded as Emma said goodbye and soon enough, the two were on their way to start their day.

XXXX

_**10:45 AM**_

_**Fairy Tail Medical Center…**_

"What's the damage this time doc?" Natsu asked as Porlyusica turned a page in her clipboard before turning to her wall mounted touch screen computer.

"Nothing serious," said the aging, pink haired doctor as she looked over Natsu's biometric chart, "your eye is due for a fiber optic scan but that can wait for now. Your arm is still working as it should and your scars are healing nicely. Overall, nothing different than last time you were here."

Natsu nodded and then gestured to a nearby table where his arm lay under a laser scanner.

"Does that mean I can put my arm back in?" Natsu asked.

"Be my guest."

Natsu stood up from the table, clad in his boxers, and picked up his arm.

"Need any help with that?" Porlyusica asked.

"No thanks, I got it." Natsu said as he leveled the arm with its socket. He took a deep breath before setting it in place, before punching it into the socket. Natsu hissed as the magnetic locking pins popped back in place and the nerve transmitters realigned with their connectors.

The arm twitched once and then twice before Natsu regained a semblance of "feeling" in his arm. He wiggled his fingers and then flexed them and his wrist. He raised his arm and did the same motions that he did for his hand while idly reading the bar code and the "Fiore Combat Systems" trademark that was laser engraved on the metal.

"Any problems?" Porlyusica asked.

Natsu held up his hand, closed it into a fist and watched as the knuckle plate guard snapped back to allow the five inch concealed blade to appear.

"Nope." Natsu said, snapping his hand and hiding the blade once more.

Porlyusica sighed and shook her head.

"I hope to God you never get in a situation where you have get _that_ up close and personal with someone." The doctor said, putting her hands in her lab coat.

"You never know doc," Natsu said, "odds are that if I do have to use this thing, it'll probably mean I'm going to die anyways."

"Let's hope not anytime soon, you still owe me that forty bucks from the Stanley Cup finals."

Natsu chuckled as he began to put his clothes back on.

"It's on my to-do list. By the way," Natsu said as he pulled on his pair of old BDU pants, "Where's Wendy? I haven't seen her since I got here."

"She's at school, it's Friday remember?" Porlyusica said, referring to her star pupil.

"Oh yeah, I forgot." Natsu said.

"Knowing her she'll probably ask for the night off to go hang out with the boyfriend of hers." Porlyusica grumbled.

"She's seventeen," Natsu said as he pulled his half sleeve shirt over his head before slipping on his boots, "she's allowed to make her own decisions now. Besides, Romeo's not that bad. He's a pretty cool kid once you get to know him."

"Still doesn't mean I approve." Porlyusica said.

"You nor Gajeel…can't blame him though, she is his little sister after all." Natsu said before standing and cracking his back before slipping his necklaces on.

Porlyuisca regarded Natsu for a moment before crossing her arms.

"I have to ask; how are you doing?" she said.

Natsu shrugged.

"You just gave me the green light, why are you asking?"

"You know what I mean," Porlyusica said, her tone slightly crossed, "be honest with me Natsu."

Natsu paused and looked at his artificial hand.

"Same old same old. Still get into my moods and want to be left alone." Natsu said before pausing slightly.

"_She's_ always on my mind."

"Have you talked to anyone about it?" Porlyusica asked.

Natsu shook his head.

"No." He said.

"…You really should speak with someone Natsu. It's been five years and you've only made minimal progress. Everyone is worried about you and I damn well know that Lucy wouldn't-"

"It's my problem and I'll handle it my way. _I'm. Fine_." Natsu snapped and turned his back to the doctor, making his way to the door.

"Do you need anything else or can I go?" Natsu asked, his tone having calmed slightly.

"…No. You're free to go…I'll see you next month." Porlyusica said.

Natsu paused as the door slid open. He let out a sigh and looked back over his shoulder and at the doctor.

"I'm sorry…I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

"No…it's okay. I was out of line. Now get going, the others are probably waiting for you."

Natsu nodded and then left. Porlyusica returned to her desk and ran her hand through her hair.

"Poor boy." She muttered sadly to herself.

XXXX

Natsu drove his Dodge Challenger down the scenic coastal highway that ran up the west side of Tenrou Island. He could've used the main road that ran past the medical center and stayed within the base perimeter but Natsu always liked driving down the highway and looking at the ocean. He would just go through the base's main entrance.

…And he also wanted to clear his head before meeting with the others. Gray was back from his honeymoon and he hadn't seen the man since the wedding and the after party. He wanted to catch up with his blood brother but didn't want to appear to be a grouch in front of his team.

Natsu sighed as his eye flickered to the ocean and then to then to the forest the lined the road. He sometimes forgot how big the island could be.

Tenrou Island was located roughly a hundred and fifty miles off the coast of mainland Japan. It shared characteristics with Okinawa but was two times wider and three times longer than its cousin island. And it also had the mother of all tree's inhabiting the southern half of the island, the Great Tenrou as it was known, so that naturally drew a few heads. It was one of the few places on the island that was hard to get to due to the fact that south was mainly filled with thick brush/forest and vast rock formations while the center and northern half of the island changed into flatland and fields.

While the southern part of the island was left alone, the north and center was where the people of the island could be found. In the north, lay the city of Magnolia; home to roughly 278,000 people. The town been there for centuries and was mainly used as a fishing and trade hub. And like most things in the world, it grew as time passed.

The center of the island was where Fairy Tail was located. The base and the land around it took up most of the land. Two airfields, office buildings, hangers, storage bunkers, communication centers and power arrays, the base was practically a city unto itself. The perimeter was always watched and there were plenty of warning signs, fences, land mines and high powered sensors to make sure people stayed out. And the razor wire; can't forget the razor wire. The rest of the land in-between simply acted as a buffer zone of sorts between the rest of the island and three hundred and fifty thousand of the most heavily armed, highly trained and skilled private military contractors on the planet.

The eastern half of the island belonged to Fairy Tail. It was where the artillery, missile systems and vehicle crews practiced. Even from his spot on the road, Natsu could faintly here the dull  
>"thuds" of tank cannons. The Leopard 2's and their crews must've been running drills again.<p>

The western half of the island was the main residential section to island. Both people from the city and from Fairy Tail had homes there amongst the small communities. It was the suburbs of the island, essentially. It was also where the Fairy Tail graveyard was located…for all the members it had lost over the years.

Natsu frowned slightly. He'd have to visit there soon…it had been a while since last he'd been there. He missed how quiet it was and how the sakura trees always seemed to be in bloom. The perfect place to pay his respects.

…Still, for all the international fame or infamy, depending on who you asked, Fairy Tail and the native residents of the island maintained a friendly and peaceful relationship. It had been that way since the PMC had been founded towards the end of the late 1960's. Fairy Tail took care of the people and the island that had been so kind to them; it was simple as that.

The island was home.

Natsu guided his Challenger around a bend in the road and was rewarded with the sight of two Humvee's and two MRAP's driving in the opposite direction. The lead driver spotted Natsu and honked his horn, the other vehicles doing the same. Natsu honked back and the vehicles passed one another-they most likely had perimeter duty today. There wasn't a person on the island who didn't recognize the black muscle car with the orange "Fairy" emblem on the hood and who was behind the wheel.

Natsu smiled softly.

"Price of fame," Natsu muttered as he took his free hand to tap the dragon pendant on his neck, "isn't that right dad?"

XXXX

Forty minutes later, Natsu had driven to the northern most half of the base and was steadily pulling up the front gates of Fairy Tail. The glass office buildings gleamed in the morning light but did nothing to hide the four security checkpoints that guarded the main entrance. After fifteen minutes of showing and reshowing his ID, being bombarded after search after search of his vehicle and the retinal, voice and finger print scans-all while being watched by the remote controlled M2 Heavy Machine Guns, Natsu was allowed to proceed.

"Oh Natsu," the guard at the last checkpoint said, "I just want to let you know, Makarov is out on business today with Laxus and Mirajane, so Cana's in charge."

"What for?" Natsu asked.

"Makarov is finalizing a deal with Lamia Scale and won't be back until Monday."

Natsu shook his head with a sigh.

"Let's just hope that the old man and that crazy old bat don't start World War Three." Natsu said referring to the…tense relationship shared between their boss and Lamia Scale's Ooba Babasaama.

"Amen to that. If that does happen, you can count me out though; I ain't sticking around to see how that song and dance goes."

Natsu rolled his eyes.

"So glad we have your support." Natsu said sarcastically making the guard chuckle.

"My team here yet?" Natsu asked and the guard nodded.

"Yep, they all clocked in and are waiting for you." The guard said as he logged Natsu into his computer.

"Same place?" Natsu asked.

"Where else?" The guard said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Hanger Five as usual."

"Then I better not keep them waiting." Natsu said, shifting gears and pulling forward.

"Later Natsu!" The guard called out and Natsu simply waved back.

Driving away from the checkpoint, Natsu passed the various buildings that made up the financial district of the base as he drove down the main road. But soon enough, the road dipped down and the car passed under the raised tarmac of the second runway just as an Airbus A400 landed overhead. One of the teams must've returned or a cargo shipment had arrived. Natsu came out of the tunnel and watched as two Sukhoi Su-30's and a Panavia Tornado refitted with airborne early warning systems, took off from the main runway as he turned onto the second roadway. The fighters were always out on patrol or practicing maneuvers.

The road soon led under another tunnel before coming out onto a more centralized area of the base. This was where the communications, barracks, on base apartments, command center, main offices and the armories were located. And centered in the middle of this was a medium sized building with a rustic appearance. It was a bar where everyone went to hang out, wait for an assignment or relax after work. The sign simply read in bold lettering; HANGER 5.

Natsu pulled into the parking lot, killed the engine and took a calming breathe. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a minute before stepping out.

Entering the front door, Natsu took in the smell of beer and warm food and the staccato of voices from the various voices of the bars occupants.

"Well, well," a booming voice called out, "look who decided to show up."

Natsu turned with a small smile as Gajeel walked up to Natsu.

"Good to see you Gajeel." Natsu said as he Gajeel clasped each other's forearms with a shake.

"Likewise brother." Gajeel said with his trademark grin.

"You been here long?" Natsu asked.

"Nah, me and guys got here an hour or so after the place opened. We've been waiting for you."

"Sorry, I had an appointment with Porlyusica." Natsu said.

"She declare you crazy?" Gajeel teased.

"Not yet. But I'd give her another month or two." Natsu said making Gajeel chuckle and slap his hand on his team leader's back.

"C'mon, the guys are waiting." Gajeel said.

The two made their way through the crowds as Natsu and Gajeel exchanged greetings with friends before reaching a back corner booth.

"Look who's back from honeymoon," Natsu said as Gray rose and the two gave each other a bro hug, "I was beginning to wonder if you would be coming back or if Juvia would drain the life from you."

"What goes on in my love life is none of your business…good to see you brother." Gray said as Natsu and Jellal shook hands before the four took their seats.

"Have I missed anything in the time that I was gone?" Gray asked.

"Nothing really. We got some possible new recruits but they're still being screened and put through their paces." Jellal said.

"Who's got 'em?" Gray said, "Elfman or Erza?"

"Erza." Natsu, Gajeel and Jellal said in unison.

"God have mercy." Gray said before taking a hearty swig of his soda. They were on duty and therefore alcohol was not permitted until they clocked out. Overwhelming firepower and booze never seemed to mix or bode well for anyone.

"Speaking of Elfman, did you hear about him and Evergreen?" Gajeel said, his grin curling on his lips.

"What about 'em?" Natsu said.

"Well, you know how those two say they can't stand each other and are not into each other?"

"Yeah, what else is new?" Gray said.

"Well, I heard from Levy who heard from Mirajane-"

"Uh-oh." Jellal said.

"-that she found two tickets for a getaway resort at Hawaii. Couples suite and complement package. And they weren't for her and Laxus."

The men were silent for a minute before Gray, Gajeel and Jellal burst out laughing. Natsu chuckled deeply and palmed his face.

"I'm going to get mileage on this for weeks!" Gray cackled. His smile, however, subtly diminished when he saw Natsu shake his head despite smiling. Had he heard this five years ago, Natsu would've pounced on the chance to tease Elfman into eternity.

"_He really has changed,"_ Gray thought glumly, _"damn."_

"What about you Jellal; how's the family?" Gray said changing topics.

"You know Erza. She loves her job but loves being a mother even more. Emma keeps growing every day; she's already past my knees."

"She'll grow up fast so make the most of it." Natsu said, resting his hands behind his head.

"I know, I know. Right now she's all into that Pokémon stuff and the next she'll be asking guys out in high school." Jellal replied, "I just don't want her to grow up too fast that's all."

"Odd for you to say that," Gajeel said," something on your mind?"

Jellal shook his head and rested his chin on his palm.

"Just something Erza said this morning. She asked if we'd be getting a job anytime soon. I know we have plenty of money in the bank but it's not like her to ask that unless it's important."

"She looking for a job?" Gajeel asked, "Not something too extreme I hope."

Gray snickered.

"Say's the man who took all of those suicide jobs last month. You had us worrying there for a bit; you got a death wish or something?"

"'Course not," Gajeel said, "those were good paying jobs and I needed the cash."

Gajeel chugged the last of his drink.

"Besides, I'm still here aren't I?" Gajeel said.

"Unfortunately." Gray muttered making Gajeel scowl.

"Watch it man or I'll kick your ass all the way back to San Diego." Gajeel growled while Gray held his hands up innocently.

Jellal sighed.

"She's been acting a little weird too lately. I think she's caught the tail end of a bug or something."

Natsu raised an eyebrow before looking at Gray and Gajeel before giving them a knowing smirk.

"Jellal…I pretty sure that means she's pregnant again." Natsu said.

"What!?" Jellal said, his head snapping up with wide eyes.

"Think about it. She's asking about money because she probably wants to start saving up for the baby and "the bug" she caught is her going through morning sickness."

Jellal stared at Natsu before looking to Gray and Gajeel who nodded in agreement. A smile formed on Jellal's face before he suddenly stood up and took his phone out of his pocket.

"I have to make a call." Jellal said before exiting the front door.

Fifteen minutes later Jellal walked back in with the biggest grin the guys had ever seen on his face. Well, they had seen it before…but that was back when Erza had been pregnant with Emma.

"She wanted to make it a surprise…but I told her what you told me." Jellal said, "I'm going to be a father; again!"

"Congratulations man!" Gajeel said, slapping Jellal on the back.

"Yeah, that's terrific man. Emma will be bouncing off the wall." Gray said with a smile.

"Congratulations Jellal, I'm happy for you, Erza and Emma." Natsu said with a gentle smile.

Jellal, still smiling, was almost shaking with excitement.

"I…I can't believe it…another child…I'm…I'm at a total loss for words." Jellal said.

"This calls for a celebration guys," Gajeel said as he stood, pulling Jellal up with him, "let's see if I can get Kinana and Laki to whip up something special for us; and I'm buying."

Natsu and Gray watched the two walk off to the front of the bar. The two lifelong friends chuckled as they watched and slightly heard the two barista's squeal in delight as Jellal told them the good news.

"I'm happy for him…I really am." Natsu said.

Gray nodded.

"Can't argue with you there. He and Erza definitely deserve that child. I mean after all they've been through, I think it's about time life starts paying them back for all the shit it put them through." Gray said.

Natsu nodded.

"Don't need to remind me. Besides, I could say the same for you and Juvia. I knew you were going to pop the question to her but the way you two get sometimes, I was expecting some dark haired kids to be running around here already." Natsu said but received a punch on the shoulder.

"Hey, we're not that bad!" Gray protested.

"Keep telling yourself that." Natsu said smugly.

"…Thanks for the wedding gift by the way; those matching silver teru bozu necklaces." Gray said as he held up both the silver charm and his cross.

Natsu shrugged his shoulder simply.

"Seemed appropriate at the time." Natsu said, "Juvia's always had a thing for those little dolls."

The two were quiet again.

"Natsu…I have to ask, are you doing alright?" Gray tentively asked.

"Everyone seems to be asking me that today." Natsu sighed before looking at one of the flat screens that hung from the ceiling.

"I keep giving the same answer; yes, I'm fine." Natsu said.

"Natsu…please don't lie to me." Gray said, "Because I know when you are. We've known each other too long."

Natsu turned back to Gray, his eyes showing annoyance.

"What do you want me to say Gray? That I've gotten over it? That I've moved on?"

"Natsu it's been five years, you _have_ to move on; this whole thing has been eating away at you. You've been spending more time with Lisanna again right?"

"Lisanna and I have been friends since we were kids Gray, you should know that better than anyone and that's all we're going to be." Natsu said through clenched teeth.

"Look bro, Lucy made me promise to look after you and so far, I've been finding it very hard to keep that promise. If I can't do that then maybe I should ask Lisanna!"

"Stop bringing Lucy into this Gray." Natsu said, his tone threatening.

"I'm serious man, you can't go on like this. You hardly say anything but a sentence at a time and the most I ever hear you speak is when we're on an op. I hardly see you laugh anymore and when you get into a mood nobody hears from you for at least a few days!" Gray hissed.

Natsu palmed his face with a groan.

"I'm not having this conversation Gray. I have enough to deal with it as it is and I don't need people badgering me about my personal problems! Plus I still have that fracking dream that keeps waking me up." Natsu said the last part of his statement in a lower voice.

"What dream?" Gray asked.

"Nothing." Natsu grumbled as Jellal and Gajeel returned with a large plate of loaded fries and refills on drinks.

The two noticed the tense mood and looked at each other before back to Natsu and Gray.

"Something wrong?" Jellal asked.

"No…don't worry about it." Gray said but shot Natsu a look that said they'd be continuing where they left off later.

"Whatever." Gajeel said as he dug into the fries.

The table was quiet as the men ate and made idle talk but then they heard someone call out, "Hey, turn on the news! Turn on the news!"

Natsu and Co. looked up from their food to the main flat screen that took up half of the opposite wall as the music was replaced by the TV's sound.

"…_And we are just receiving reports now that there is a mass hostage crisis underway at the Prague National Museum after a group of heavily armed terrorists stormed the building."_ The news anchor said.

The image on the screen showed the National Museum in all its splendor from an aerial view. The words on the screen read: CRISIS IN CZECH REPUBLIC.

"Oh shit." Gajeel said with his mouth full as leaked security camera footage began to play of what appeared to be both men and women wielding assault rifles and firing them into the air as innocent people scrambled for cover.

"Oh man that can't be good." Jellal said.

The men continued to watch the screen.

"You think we'll get called in?" Gray asked and Natsu shrugged.

"Hard to say really this early on. As much as we want to, we can't do everyone's work for them. The Czech's have the 601st on standby for this sort of thing so let's let them do their jobs before we jump the gun." Natsu said referring to the Czech Army's elite Special Forces unit.

"How long has it been since a terrorist attack this big?" Gajeel asked, "I mean, the last time we saw something like this happen was when we slugged it out with Grimoire Heart…and that was, what, six or seven years ago?"

"Seven." Seven Jellal said, "And we wiped those guys off the map. We lost a lot of good people that day."

"But we saved many more in the long run." Natsu said with a sigh, "Still, that whole thing was a royal pain in the ass."

"No arguments here." Gray said.

"So do you really think we'll really get called up for this as back up or will this be just a private fight?"

"We'll just have to watch and wait Gray," Natsu said with a shrug of his shoulders, "because right now that's all we can do."

XXXX

_**Three and a half hours later…**_

The situation in Prague didn't show any signs of improving.

The latest reports said that the attack had happened during the opening of a new eighteenth century Europe exhibit that was open to the public. A sizeable crowd had gathered to beat the afternoon rush and there was even a group of elementary school children at the museum for a field trip. Then seemingly appearing from within the crowd, thirty armed men and women began shooting their weapons in the air causing many people to scatter and run in fear. Then a group of twenty stormed the back of the building via a semi-truck and used it to block the loading bay in the back. Altogether that made a group of fifty terrorists; a platoon sized unit.

And then there were the hostages; thirty people altogether. Mostly the children from the field trip and few adults who had gotten captured.

No demands had been made and no one knew who the group was part of.

The police were quick to respond and had immediately cordoned off the area around the museum just as news crews began to arrive. Two hours into the siege and the 601st had been deployed. The men and women in Hanger 5 and countless others around the world watched as five teams of the Czech Republic's most elite soldiers, dressed in black and exo-frames, stormed the museum via the ground and from the roof. Gunfire erupted soon after and for twenty minutes the distinct chatter of automatic weapons fire echoed out into the city as windows shattered from stray bullets. An explosion was heard and a one of the Czech operators was blasted out of the second story window.

It was apparent that something had gone wrong on the inside.

Two of the teams suddenly leapt through the front doors and windows as two more explosions echoed out. They then provided covering fire as the third team stumbled out carrying two wounded team members. The third and fifth teams were nowhere to be seen.

The situation had deteriorated from a rescue mission and into a standoff.

"Poor bastards." Gajeel muttered as he sadly shook his head.

"At least we know that these aren't you're run of the mill terrorists," Jellal said, "if they were able to make those 601st teams fall back like that, it means they're well equipped and know what they're doing."

"Agreed," Natsu said, "the 601st is highly disciplined and extremely hard to back into a corner. The fact that this happened means they got hit harder than they expected."

"Now they're going to start executing hostages." Gray grumbled and shook his head before walking off, "I can't watch this anymore."

Natsu's phone suddenly began to ring and he dug it out of his pants pocket. The caller ID read: CANA.

"Yeah?" Natsu answered.

"Command center, my office." Canna simply said before hanging up.

"We going to Prague?" Gajeel asked.

"That's what I'm going to find out." Natsu said as he put his phone away and went back to his car.

It was a fifteen minute drive to the Command Building, a unique geometric shaped building located at the center of the base. It was another ten minutes before Natsu passed through security and entered the main atrium which glowed in the afternoon light courtesy of the skylight.

Natsu boarded the nearest elevator, punched the button for the top floor and after a short trip, was walking down the window lit hallway. He approached an office door that was marked; .

Natsu knocked twice and the door opened.

"You rang?" Natsu said as he stepped in to the office.

"I did." Cana said from her desk before drinking from a bottle of whiskey.

"Drinking on the job Cana?" Natsu said as he addressed the brown haired beauty, "If someone saw this, don't you think it would ruin our reputation?"

Cana gave her old friend a cheeky smile.

"Since when has that eve stopped me?" She said.

"Point taken," Natsu said as he sat at an available chair, "so, this about the hostage debacle in Prague?"

"Yep," Cana said, "the Czech's got their asses kicked and they need help. So they turned to us in their hour of need."

"Can't the Czech Army handle this?" Natsu asked, "This is their city and people we're talking about here."

"True, they could, but they don't want to run the risk of aggravating the terrorists even further and cause another blood bath in there." Cana said.

"I see." Natsu said, "Well, wouldn't it be easier to ask Mermaid Heel or Blue Pegasus for help with this. Europe is their specialty after all."

"The Czech's are readying for a new attack but don't want to make the same mistakes. They asked for the best of the best and currently, that's us." Cana said.

"They specifically requested Sigma Team, or "The Four Horsemen" to be exact; so that means you and your team."

Cana then let out a small sigh and reclined back into her chair.

"However, since we don't know what to expect nor do we have a European branch, I took the liberty of asking Blue Pegasus for help with this. They'll provide a Blackhawk and fire support…but for a small fee of course."

"I see no harm with that." Natsu said, "So how's this going to work, did you get Makarov's approval?"

Cana held up a piece of paper that had clearly been printed out.

"He gave us the green light. As soon as I heard the news, I called Makarov and explained what we knew so far. He gave me permission to negotiate a deal if the Czech's called up and low and behold they did. As for your role in all of this, I already notified you plane and it's being prepped as we speak and you'll be briefed on the flight out. You'll refuel at Diego Garcia and proceed to Prague from there."

"Sound fair enough…how much we getting paid for this?" Natsu asked.

Cana smiled brightly and swiveled her computer monitor to face Natsu. He blinked once and then twice before his mouth hung open slightly.

"Wow…that's a lot of zero's." Natsu said in awe.

"Like I said, the best of the best. Get your team together and head to the armory, I'll call to them to let them know you're coming." Cana said.

"Roger that." Natsu said and was out the door in no time and already setting his phone on group call. As soon as he saw that his team had answered, Natsu spoke without preamble.

"Cancel your dinner plans boys, we're going to Prague." Natsu said.

"About damn time." Gajeel said.

"The Atlas is being prepped as we speak and we'll be briefed on the flight out. In the meantime, I want you guys to meet me at the armory to suit up; full combat load this time."

"Got it." The others said in unison.

Natsu was making his way back to the elevator when the doors suddenly opened to reveal four familiar people.

"Mr. Natsu!" Two twin little girls called out in glee as they ran forth and hugged Natsu by his legs, their parents close behind.

"Melody, Harmony; good to see you!" Natsu said in honest joy as he bent down to hug the twins before standing to greet Rouge and Kagura Cheney.

"Rouge, Kagura, good to see you too." Natsu said as he and Rouge shook hands before Kagura gave him a gentle hug.

"Natsu it's been too long." Kagura said as she pulled back, "How are you doing?"

"Same old same old." Natsu said as he held up his prosthetic, "Still not used to this piece of junk but hey, it's better than nothing."

"We're just happy to see you that's all that matters." Rouge said.

"Yeah…sorry about that." Natsu said as he rubbed the back of his head, "I…I still get into my moods and you know how it goes from there."

Rouge and Kagura gave Natsu a sympathetic look but Natsu quickly snapped out his stupor.

"Makarov is at Lamia Scale so whatever you're here for, you'll have to wait or handle it through Cana."

"We know," Rouge said, "but Sting and I want to at least broker the idea first before anything heavy begins."

"Mr. Natsu," Melody said, interrupting her father, "are you going to play with us and Aunt Erza again?"

"Yeah!" Harmony said, "We even brought Frosche and Lector with us so they could play with Happy and his friends."

Natsu sighed and gave the girls a sad smile.

"Sorry you two but I just got a job and I won't be back until much later." Natsu said. He was bummed about this; he didn't get to see his quasi-nieces that often and he knew how much they liked being here with him.

Once upon a time, Kagura had been adopted by Fairy Tail and was close to everyone on the base and island. She and Erza were practically sisters and she spent so much time with the other kids that Natsu regarded her as a sister as well. But, eventually, Kagura wanted to spread her wings and chose to leave Tenrou Island. Makarov had worked out a nice deal with Mermaid Heel Defense and was able to get Kagura transferred to their main branch in no time. By the time she turned eighteen, she was in the field making a name for herself. Eventually she met Rouge, albeit under a hail of gunfire, and the two clicked instantly. By the time they turned twenty, the two had married and Kagura was balancing jobs between Mermaid Heel and Sabertooth.

Now she was a mother to two beautiful little girls.

"Awww man." The twins pouted.

"Don't worry, when I get back I'll make it up to you okay? In the meantime, you can hang out with Aunt Erza and Emma!" Natsu said and the girls nodded.

"Where you heading?" Kagura asked.

"Prague, Czech Republic. You hear about that hostage situation at the museum?"

"How can we've not?" Kagura said, "It was all over the net and radio chatter between the PMC's."

"Yeah, well we've been contacted to help the Czech's out so keep your eyes on the news okay?"

Natsu then looked at his watch and cursed under his breathe.

"Look, I gotta get going but we'll catch up later." Natsu said as he set off at a brisk pace.

"Be careful!" Rouge called out as Natsu entered the elevator.

"Always!" He yelled back.

XXXX

Natsu arrived at the armory bunker just as the others we're pulling into the parking lot. After descending underground and enduring a quick battery of security tests, the four man team were soon at their equipment lockers and were issuing their weapon choices to the awaiting technicians.

"C'mon guys, we're on the clock; get your frames on and grab your, ammo, ordinance and whatever the hell you need to blast these terrorist punks into oblivion." Natsu said as he zipped up his combat pants before sliding on his combat boots.

He then reached into his locker and gently pulled out his lucky scarf, wrapped it around his neck and then pulling on his combat shirt. He then did the same for his body armor.

The men wore uniforms set in Kryptek Raid urban camouflage while their armor had been switched to that of Kryptek Typhon black.

Natsu buckled his shin and thigh guards to his legs before doing the same for his forearm guards and then slid his hard knuckle gloves over his hands. A technician then beckoned him over to his assigned station where his Exo-Frame hung from its rack. Unlike an Exo-Skeleton, which wrapped around the whole body, the Exo-Frame did as its name suggested; it framed the back, arms and legs. The frame locked onto the wearer's body armor while connecting to a small, self-recycling power pack set on the lower back. Using a series of hydraulic tubes and servos, the frames provided the wearer with enhanced speed, strength and agility along with extra protection in certain areas and the ability to carry more ammo and equipment. The Exo-Frames were a relatively new piece of hardware but had proven their potential both on and off the battlefield. Personally, Natsu was glad the frames came with integrated hand guards otherwise his hands would've shattered every time he hit something or someone.

Currently, the Exo-Frame came in three models; light, medium and heavy.

The light model offered less protection but the same advantages as the other frames. Jellal was currently strapping his frame on while Gray made sure his power pack was in working order.

Both Natsu and Gray wore medium frames while Gajeel was the only one to wear a heavy frame. The heavy was a bit on the cumbersome side but for the extra protection and strength it gave, it was a welcomed tradeoff.

With their frames secured, the men donned their headwear and ID tags.

Natsu wore a specially made ballistic face mask with a PASGT style helmet over his radio headset. He then buckled his helmet to his mask, the faded black and grey skull starring emotionlessly at nothing. His ID tag, printed on his helmet and vest, read: SCAR. On his shoulder he wore an old and battle worn patch of what had used to be a grinning salamander wearing a helmet and carrying an assault rifle which also read: FAIRY TAIL-SALAMANDER.

Gray wore a black Kevlar, low profile baseball cap with the Fairy Tail emblem printed on the front while placing his com's headset over the hat. He wore a half ballistic face mask, painted to resemble a jagged grin, and a pair of shatter resistant sunglasses that were tinted blue. His ID tags read: FROST, while his patch was that of a blue colored snowflake.

Jellal opted to wear his black boonie hat and keep his snipers veil wrapped around his neck while he pulled his cloth skull mask over his mouth and nose. His HUD monocle and snipers poncho completed the look. His tags read: GRIM, while his patch was that of a hooded grim reaper with two crossed rifles behind it. He _was_ Fairy Tail's personal grim reaper.

Finally there was Gajeel. He wore a helmet similar to Natsu's but opted to wear a mandible guard that was painted white to resemble a grinning dragon. A ballistic neck pad covered the back of his head and neck and gave his helmet an appearance to that of a samurai's from long ago. His blast resistant goggles fit snuggly over his eyes. His tags read: STEEL, while his patch was that of an anvil with two crossed machine guns behind it.

The final patches all four men shared were their Fairy Tail insignia and blood type patches.

"We all good?" Natsu asked and received nods from his teammates.

"Alright, I'll synch our HUD's and then we need to grab out guns and ammo and go. We're five minutes late as it is."

Nastu switched on his wrist mounted tactical computer as the others did the same. Their eyewear began to glow an eerie blue as their Head's Up Display flickered to life. The HUD displayed all relevant tactical information, personal and team biometric data, weapon and ammo status, a 2D compass and map, the IFF tags for his team (blue triangles for friendlies, red-inverted triangles for enemies) and a direct video feed that allowed each member to look through a teammate of their choosing's point of view while also transmitting the images back to HQ. The HUD could even change from normal vision operation to that of night vision or infrared vision settings.

With their HUD's synched, the men grabbed their respective weapons and loaded up all the ammo they could possibly carry whether it was shoved into an empty pocket, pouch or taped to their armor.

"What kind of ammo are we using for this job?" Gray asked as he picked up his custom AA-12 CQB automatic shotgun and slapped the drum magazine home.

"For you, Frag-12 explosive shells and buckshot." Natsu said, "The rest of us will be using ammo of our choice."

"Roger that." Gray said as he picked up and then pumped the action for his Kel-Tec KSG with forward grip and reflex sight, before slinging it over his shoulder.

"I like to keep this for close encounters." Gray said as he patted the gun.

"That is a great movie." Jellal said, catching the reference.

"Five-five six or seven-six two?" Gajeel asked as Natsu placed a box of preloaded magazines on a nearby table. The markings on the box read: ARMOR PIERCING, STEEL JACKET-COPPER-TUNGSTEN CARBIDE TIP.

"Both." Natsu simply answered as he loaded a fresh magazine into his F2000 Tactical with a magnified holographic sight. He then loaded a 40mm grenade into the underslung GL-1 grenade launcher.

"Armor piercing all the way then." Gajeel replied as he had Jellal assist him with rigging his ammo backpack to his frame. Packed with over 1,100 rounds of ammunition and connected by a feed chute to his M60E6, Gajeel essentially turned himself into a walking tank. He held the front grip and brought the machine gun to his shoulder, making sure the M145 gun sight was sighted properly. He then picked up two spare barrels for the M60 and locked them to his back over his shoulder.

"What else in terms of firepower are we using?" Jellal asked as he racked the bolt on his GM6 Lynx Anti-Material Rifle with a 4-14x scope and back up red-dot sight, making sure the 12.7mm NATO M2 Armor Piercing bullet was ready to fire and gave the five round magazine a solid slap. He then did the same for his MP7A2 PDW, equipped with a reflex sight, and then slapped it to his thigh rig.

"DM-51 high explosive grenades, breaching charges and stun grenades." Natsu said as he picked up a series of magazines that had blue and red tape wrapped around them.

"Seriously?" Gray asked, "You're using those?"

"You never know." Natsu replied as he tucked away the explosive tipped and shredder bullets.

"Just let me know when you are using them, I don't want to come back home as ground beef." Gray said.

"I'll try but no promises." Natsu replied well aware that his explosive bullets packed a three meter blast radius while his shredder rounds splintered apart and tore anything they hit to shreds…hence their name.

"Got your sidearms?" Natsu asked as Gray and Jellal held up their standard issue 10mm Glock 20's, loaded with jacketed hollow points. Natsu patted the Glock holstered at his thigh to make sure he had grabbed it.

He then looked to Gajeel and groaned.

"Really, a Desert Eagle?" Natsu said as Gajeel cackled.

"Aren't you packing enough overkill as it is?" Jellal asked.

"Nope, never am and never will." Gajeel said as she holstered the massive .50 caliber pistol.

"Do I even have to tell you how impractical that gun is?" Gray asked.

"You can try but I doubt I'll listen." Gajeel sad smugly.

"Whatever." Gray said as he held up his hands, "Then again, I shouldn't be talking; boss here is the one with the frickin Raging Bull holstered at his hip."

"It was my adoptive father's and he passed it down to me…I take it wherever I go, you should know that by now." Natsu said tersely.

There was a brief silence before Gray gave a mumbled apology.

"Knives?" Natsu asked.

While the others held up their Relentless M1A ten inch Bowie's, with the exception of Jellal who kept a nineteen inch straight blade combat sword sheathed under his poncho, Natsu was the only one to have a set of different blades. Sheathed on his shoulders, their grips facing down, were two Extrema Ratio ADRA combat knives. They weren't as intimidating as the Bowie's but in Natsu's hands, they were absolutely vicious.

Everything was in order.

"You guys ready?" Natsu asked as his team perked up.

Gajeel racked the bolt on his M60.

"Let's kick some ass." He said and Gray and Jellal nodded in agreement.

The team of four ascended out of the armory where they were met by an awaiting cargo truck. The truck then took them to the airfield where their Airbus A400 was already pulling out of its hanger.

But they had another surprise waiting for them; they had well-wishers.

Waiting for them were Erza, Emma, Juvia and Levy. The two groups met each other halfway as the truck came to a stop.

"Do you really have to go daddy?" Emma asked, he tone dejected at the prospect of her father going to work. She may have been young, but she knew that her father's work involved him doing stuff that got him hurt a lot.

"Yes Emma, daddy has to go to work. There are some very bad people that daddy has to stop and he has to go now. Don't worry, I'll be back later tonight or tomorrow morning. I won't be gone long."

"Promise?" Emma asked as Jellal picked her up in his arms and pulled down his mask to kiss Emma on her forehead before setting her down.

"Promise." Jellal said as he walked over to Erza to gently kiss her before kneeling down to kiss her stomach.

"You be safe alright. If you come back a mess, I won't let you hear the end of it." Erza warned only for Jellal to kiss her again.

"There is no chance in hell of that happening…not when I have you _three_ to worry about." Jellal said.

Erza smiled warmly and placed her hands on her stomach.

"You'll come back…right?" Erza whispered.

"Count on it." Jellal said with a nod and pulled his mask up. He hugged his wife and daughter one more time before heading over to the plane, figuring the others would catch up with him while Natsu was talking to the crew chief.

"Be safe okay." Levy said as she gently held Gajeel's armored hands in hers, "I'll be your handler for this one so I'll be watching you guys…but still, please be careful…I…I worry about you every time you go out."

Gajeel had taken his helmet and mask off so he could get a better look at Levy. He smiled gently and pulled her into a brief but gentle hug.

"Don't worry shrimp, it'll take more than just a bunch of overconfident thugs to take me down."

"…Just be careful." Levy said with a faint smile.

"Always." Gajeel said before walking off.

Gray and Juvia were having a similar discussion.

"I don't expect us to be gone that long," Gray said, "we'll probably be back sometime later or early tomorrow morning. Besides you'll be with Levy in the ops center so that means you get a front row seat to all of this."

Juvia bit her lip as she nervously fiddled with her wedding band.

"I know…but I have worry you know? I'm you're wife now so…so I'm just a little agitated."

Gray sighed and pulled her close to rest his forehead against hers.

"I know." Gray said.

"Just come back to me okay?" Juvia said as Gray placed a passionate kiss on her lips.

"I promise." Gray said and began to walk away.

"Gray." Juvia spoke up making him turn around.

"Remember what you promised Lucy about Natsu." Juvia said.

Gray paused for a moment before nodding firmly.

"I won't let him out of my sight." Gray said and walked away. He then activated the call function on his wrist computer and put his finger to his headset.

After a minute the call went through and the phone on the other end was answered.

"Hey squirt it's Uncle Gray, are my parents' home?" Gray said as his adopted niece, Meredy, answered him, "…No? Your mom is? May I speak to her?"

There was another pause.

"Hey Ul, it's me." Gray addressed his stepsister, "Listen, I just got assigned a job and I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else…Where? Czech Republic-yes, the museum…look don't worry, it's probably a bunch of halfwits with AK's…Ultear, I'll be fine….just let mom and dad know what's going on for me please...and Lyon too. He's probably heard it already but you never know…okay…thanks…I'll talk to you later…love you too, bye."

Gray ended the call and sighed. He forgot how much Ultear worried about him sometimes. The team was soon aboard the plane with their weapons stowed and sitting in their seats. The cargo door closed behind them and once the crew chief had made sure they were settled, gave the all clear to the pilots.

Soon enough, the Airbus was up in the air, proceeding on its way to Diego Garcia.

XXXX

They were an hour into the flight when the crew chief said it was okay for them to stand and that HQ was contacting them.

The men stood around a portable touch screen table with holographic generator.

Natsu powered the table up and Levy, now sitting at her desk in the ops center, promptly appeared.

"Hello boys," Levy said pleasantly, "you ready to get this show on the road?"

"Hey Levy, where's Lisanna?" Gray asked.

"She's with her sister and Laxus, providing tech support for the meeting Makarov is at. She won't be back until he returns so I'll be your handler for this one."

Levy placed her hand to the coms headset on her ear before nodding to herself.

"Alright guys, I have the Commander of the 601st on the line with me now. He's going to give you guys the new plan and what we are to do with this operation."

"Patch him through." Natsu said.

A two dimensional box appeared on the table that read: SOUND ONLY-"KESTREL"-CMNDR.

"Hello?" The voice said as a wavelength appeared to rise and fall with the heavily accented English.

"This is Natsu Dragneel of Fairy Tail Sigma Team. How may we be of service to you Commander?"

"Ah yes, you must be the leader of the fabled Four Horsemen. I've heard a great deal about you and your team Mister Dragneel and I am glad that you are here to help us. I apologize for not appearing over the hologram but as is the nature of my position, I have to keep my identity hidden."

"I understand sir, just tell us what we need to do." Natsu said.

"Right," Kestrel said as a three dimensional holographic image of the museum appeared on the table, "this gentlemen is our national museum or the main building I should say. It is composed of three main levels, a sublevel and basement and has multiple stairs and access ways to the exhibits and centered around a main atrium with a large glass skylight on the roof."

"Beautiful building," Jellal muttered, "Erza and Emma would love to see this place."

"Currently, we have estimated that the terrorists are fifty person's strong, so that puts them at platoon level strength. They are well armed and have body armor, AK-107 assault rifles, submachine guns, grenades and RPG's. Our surviving teams also reported that they might even have a heavy machine gun set up somewhere in the building. We believe that is what took down teams four and five."

"For a group of terrorist these guys are unusually well armed," Gray said, "who are they and what are their demands?"

"We are not really sure at the moment," Kestrel said, his tone slightly frustrated, "our latest intel suspects that these are the remnants of Chechen Rebel group that the Georgian Special Forces wiped out about five months back. However, we can't be sure. And…no demands have been made just yet."

"How did they manage to pull this off?" Gajeel answered.

"They somehow managed to bypass security and from there, the news covered it best. Once the attack began, the second group stormed the loading bay in the back with that truck of theirs and we believe that's what carried the rest of their group and weapons." Kestrel answered.

"If that's the case, that means they're organized." Natsu said, "Which means we have to be extra careful when dealing with this. But they're also overconfident. They think just because they were able to kill some 601sts that no one will try to attack for some time."

"I'm surprised no one has been executed yet." Jellal said.

"Indeed. Our hostage negotiators have deduced that they want to drag this out as long as possible and keep all their cards in hand. That's something that can't be allowed to happen." Kestrel answered.

"What I want to know is why you guys were deployed so quickly. I've never seen a spec ops unit deploy this quickly without practicing a raid in depth. The fact that you lost ten men is unacceptable sir."

Kestrel let out a deep sigh.

"Bureaucrats." Was all he said.

"Figures." Natsu said with a roll of his eyes, "Alright Commander, how do we play into this?"

"I've already lost ten of my best men and I can't afford for that to happen again. I wish we didn't have to call you in for this. Lord knows my men, given time, could put an end to this crisis…but I have people breathing down my neck who want this resolved quickly and with a more… "Expendable" solution…no offense but since you are mercenaries, you fall under that category."

"None taken." The four men said in unison albeit irately.

"The hostages are being kept on the third level in the northwest corner of the building. They're packed together so if something snaps, it'll get ugly in a heartbeat. They have small groups patrolling the building so that leaves the majority of them divided but if they assume an attack, they'll quickly regroup."

"Safety in numbers and firepower." Natsu said.

"Correct. We have, however, been able to tap into the electrical systems in the building. We intend to cut the power but leave the security camera's up and running along with the emergency lights. This'll disorient the terrorists and give us a chance to move in while keeping an eye on where they are. Now this is where you boys come in. You are to infiltrate the building via the helicopter Blue Pegasus has provided. From there, you are to cause as much havoc as you can and draw the enemy to you. Once we are certain that the enemy has been distracted we will send in our own teams to secure the hostages, kill their guards, and get them out of the building. We will then reinforce you or you will be able to counter attack at your discretion."

"So we're bait for these guys basically?" Gajeel said while Gray groaned.

"I am sorry. But this is the best and most plausible plan we have. We can't have a repeat of this morning gentlemen…there is too much at stake."

The Fairy Tail merc's looked to one another before Natsu nodded.

"We'll buy you're men the time they need Commander." Natsu said.

"We'll show these guys why they shouldn't make an enemy of Fairy Tail."

"Thank you Mister Dragneel…we are in your debt." Kestrel said.

"Just make sure we're paid in full when this is all over." Natsu added.

"Of course…" Kestrel replied, "But I must ask, what are the chances of you and your team causing as little damage as possible?"

The four contractors looked at one another and shrugged.

"You're probably going to hate us by the time this is all over." Gray said nonchalantly.

"I was afraid of that." Kestrel said with a sigh.

"One last thing sir," Natsu said, "what's the rules of engagement?"

"…Your ROE is this; except for any hostage you encounter, you are to terminate the enemy with extreme prejudice."

Natsu smirked beneath his mask.

"Just the way I like it."

The rest of the flight to Diego Garcia was spent with the Commander committing the plan, layout of the museum and their enemy to memory. Levy had downloaded the schematics of the museum to their computers and eventually filled the Pegasus team in on what was going on. She would also be monitoring the security camera feeds from the museum and let them know if she spotted anything. Natsu also had the Pegasus crew agree to drop Jellal off at a nearby building so he could harass the terrorists with his rifle.

After a time, the Airbus landed at Diego Garcia but inclement weather prevented both the refueling and takeoff by an hour. Once up in the air again, the merc's had an inflight meal of MRE's and then grabbed what sleep they could before they arrived in continental Europe.

When they awoke, it was already dark out and the city lights gleamed in the night.

The rescue mission had begun…and they now had the cover of darkness.

XXXX

_**Prague, Czech Republic…**_

The Airbus touched down at Prague International just as a light rain was beginning to fall. Sigma team debarked and were greeted by two Czech Army staff cars that took them to a nearby hanger….where the Blue Pegasus crew awaited them with their heavily modified UH-60 Blackhawk.

"Ren, Hibiki, Jenny," Natsu addressed the chopper crew, "it's good to see you as always."

"Likewise." Hibiki Lates said with a smile as he and Natsu shook hands while the others did the same for Jenny Lates and Ren Akatsuki.

"Let's get going, those people aren't going to save themselves." Ren said as he led the group to the Blackhawk.

Within minutes, the merc's were strapped in and the chopper was run through its preflight check. Then, with Ren and Hibiki at the controls, they took the chopper into the air and made their way over the city.

"So how have you boys been?" Jenny said via her radio over the staccato of the rotors as she leaned against the choppers left side minigun.

"You know," Gray said, "the usual. We've been in such high demand that we haven't gotten many jobs lately. What about you and Hibiki? And how's Samantha?"

"We're just fine." Hibiki chimed in, "Samantha is loving second grade, and she's making a lot of friends this year. We're actually planning a vacation to Disney for Christmas this year. It's a surprise so don't tell Samantha."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Gray said, "What about you Ren? You and Sherry finally set a date?"

"We're thinking sometime in April or May. You guys are invited by the way." Ren said.

"Thanks, I'll clear my schedule when the time comes." Gajeel said, slightly bored, his fingers slowly drumming against the feed cover of his M60.

"Okay guys look sharp, we're over the museum." Ren said suddenly.

Sigma team looked out the open doors and sure enough, as indicated by all the flashing police lights, the museum glowed in the night.

"Commander, we're on station and ready to deploy." Natsu said through his radio.

"Acknowledged. Commence operations in five…four…three…two…" Kestrel said.

The lights of the museum suddenly died and the chopper rapidly descended. Jenny moved from her spot and deployed a series of fast ropes when they were hovering over the roof. Natsu, Gray and Gajeel descend and quickly disconnected their lines so that the Blackhawk could get back in the air.

"Natsu, we have plenty of fuel so if you need help, we'll be there." Hibiki said over the radio.

"If you guys start taking fire, get out of here. Don't waste your time on us." Natsu replied.

"You got it. Over and out."

The three merc's were then left alone with nothing but the sounds of the city and the rain. Motioning to follow, the three made their way to a nearby rooftop door they had seen earlier in the briefing. It would take them right to the third and second floors. Testing the lock, they found that it was bolt shut. Using his Exo-Frame's enhanced strength, Natsu effortlessly tore the lock and handle off the door. He then activated his night vision and his eyes glowed lime green. Gray did the same while Gajeel switched to infrared, his goggles glowing red.

"Gajeel, take the second floor and pick someone to shoot. Gray you're with me." Natsu whispered.

"Boss, I'm in position." Jellal said, his voice hissing over the radio, "Ready on your go. I have the south side in my sights and there are plenty of bad guys stumbling about."

"Roger. We attack on my go…pick your targets boys." Natsu said as he and Gray stopped at the third floor while Gajeel continued down.

Natsu opened the door, his eyes trained down his F2000's sights. Nothing. He motioned for Gray to follow. Keeping to the shadows, the two merc's walked with the finesse of a ghost as they constantly checked their environment through the tint of their night vision and glow of their IR lasers.

Then there came the sound of voices. Agitated, confused, and tight voices.

Natsu and Gray ducked behind an exhibit just as a group of four came into view. They were definitely speaking in Slavic but as to what they were saying…Natsu didn't care.

"Boss," Gajeel whispered, "I just knifed a guy and dumped him behind an exhibit. His buddies are right in front of me…haven't noticed me yet."

"Natsu, I got my sights lined up and ready to go." Jellal said.

"Alright, same with us. As soon as you hear the first shot, take 'em down." Natsu said before he leaned around the exhibit corner, F2000 at the ready. He picked the guy furthest to the left while Gray leveled his AA-12 to hose the rest down.

He switched off the safety, trained the holographic reticle on the guy's head and squeezed the trigger once.

**BANG! **

The shot echoed through the entire building. Before the guy even hit the ground, Gray opened up with his shotgun. The other three simply withered away under the barrage of twelve gauge buckshot.

"BOO!" Gajeel called out as he began to cackle like a maniac, cutting lose with his M60.

The distant, steady shattering of glass alerted Natsu and Gray that Jellal was having a field day with his Lynx.

The two moved from their cover and proceeded briskly through the exhibit. They rounded a bend and saw a new group of terrorists rapidly moving to their positon to investigate the gunfire. Natsu didn't hesitate to empty his magazine into all three terrorists as the armor piercing ammo did its job with brutal efficiency. Natsu pulled the bolt back, swapped magazines and gave the bolt a good old slap-chambering a new round. He was ready to go again.

"Natsu be advised, I'm seeing a large group of terrorists rapidly heading your way." Levy said over the radio.

"Which way?" Natsu said.

"You're currently on the east side of the building and they are coming from your front, you should see them any moment. I think they're trying to outflank Gajeel but don't know you're there."

"Right; take cover Gray, we got company." Natsu said as he slid up to a wall that divided the exhibit room from the next with Gray doing the same.

No sooner had Gray peeked his head slightly around the corner did a barrage of 5.45 caliber rounds riddle the wall in front of him. Cursing all the way, Gray stuck his shotgun out and blind fired the gun around the corner.

"SUCK ON THIS!" Gray roared as Natsu did the same with his rifle.

The two merc's could hear the shattering of glass and other items along with the screams of the terrorists they managed to hit. They exchanged fire before pulling back to reload.

"Damn, when was the last time we had to blind fire!?" Gray said as he reloaded a fresh thirty two round drum.

"Was it Mexico or Venezuela?" Natsu said.

"Mexico I think," Gray said as a grouping of bullets broke through the wall over his head, "we were fighting the Mendez Cartel, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Natsu said through gritted teeth, returning fire. He was tempted to use his grenade launcher but not this close in a confined space.

"I also remember that punk who got the drop on you!"

"What!? You're bringing him up!?" Gray yelled, "Natsu the guy was so high on crack that I didn't have time to respond!"

"Then how could you miss him you bumbass!?" Natsu shot back before firing off a burst with his rifle.

"I did not miss!" Gray said as he too fired his shotgun.

"You missed and hit everything else: _he was three. Feet. In front of you!_" Natsu said just as a heavier sounding gun opened up on him and Gray. The wall overhead exploded in a cloud of dust, divots and debris as Natsu and Gray dropped to their stomachs, heads bent low.

"That was a PKM!" Gray said as the light machine gun hit a little too close for home.

"Shit, they got us pinned!" Natsu said, "That's it, I'm calling in the calvary; Pegasus, Pegasus, do you copy!?"

"Roger Natsu we hear you, what's the problem?" Hibiki asked from his position on high.

"Hibiki, Gray and I are pinned on the east side of the museum and we are taking heavy fire!" Natsu said as a 7.62 round ricocheted near his head, "We need back up now!"

"On our way! Ren, take us in, Jenny, fire up the minigun; it's show time." Hibiki said.

"Woohoo!" Jenny cried out, "Its party time boys!"

The Blackhawk was on scene in a matter of seconds and the windows began to shake from the force of the rotors as the choppers searchlight lit up the interior like a Christmas tree. But most of all, Natsu and Gray heard a very distinct…and familiar mechanical _"whirrrrrrrrr."_

And then-

_BUZZZZZZZROOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR_

-the windows, frames and space in front of them exploded as the minigun came to life.

"Yeehaw; I'm on fire baby!" Jenny called out in utter delight as she sprayed down everything in her sights as the helicopter slowly moved in a strafing pattern.

"_She's crazy, that woman is absolutely crazy!" _Gray thought.

"Remind me never to piss her off!" He then yelled over the roar of the chopper and gun.

But just as quickly as the gun had fired, it stopped and the chopper pulled back.

"Natsu, I got nothing on thermals; you're clear. We're pulling back so Jenny can reload the gun."

"Thanks guys we owe you one." Natsu said as he and Gray stood. They looked around from their partially destroyed cover…and blanched at what they saw.

"Oh…my…God…" Natsu said as he palmed his face.

"The Czech's…are going…to kill us." Gray said in equal shock.

The exhibit and its subsequent rooms was completely eviscerated. Nothing was left standing. No people, no priceless artifact…nothing.

The sound of Gajeel's M60 caught their attention and they were reminded of their teammate.

"Guy's I could use some help here!" Gajeel said.

"Hang on we're right above you." Natsu said, took one last grimace at the exhibit and motioned for Gray to follow him.

"Make it quick, I need to swap barrels." Gajeel grunted before the staccato of his gun echoed over both the radio and floor below.

The two double timed it to Gajeel's IFF marker and once they were above him, they went out to the third floor landing and looked down to the second level of the main atrium. There, they saw a group of terrorists using exhibits for cover while the muzzle flash of Gajeel's M60 flared opposite of the terrorists.

"Frag 'em." Natsu said simply and drew a DM-51 HE grenade while Gray did the same.

They pulled the pins, held them for two seconds, and tossed them down to the floor below. The grenades detonated and Natsu and Gray used their Exo-Frames enhanced agility to swing and drop down to the floor and gunning down any terrorist left standing from the grenade blasts.

"Clear?" Natsu asked.

"Clear…for now." Gray said as he checked his shotgun.

"About damn time you assholes showed up." Gajeel said as he stepped out from his cover, the barrel of his M60 smoking something fierce. Gajeel removed said barrel and put in a fresh, cool one, while putting the other one away for later.

"How are you guys holding out on ammo?" Natsu asked, "I still have plenty of mags."

"I got have nine drums left, still have my three frag drums and two box mags on backup." Gray said.

"I'm down to eight hundred for the 'sixty." Gajeel said, racking the bolt, "I can do this all day."

"Good," Natsu said before pressing his fingers to his radio, "Levy, what's the status on the terrorists."

"If they didn't know you were there before, they do now." Levy said, "The bulk of their force is heading towards you but they have left a group behind to watch over the hostages."

"Alright, we'll draw them further back and then let the 601st move in." Natsu said, "You guys hear that?"

"Yep, things are going to get heavy." Gray said as he cracked his neck.

"Jellal, get Pegasus on the horn and get your ass over here, we're about get hit and need you here." Natsu said.

"Copy that." Jellal replied over the radio.

A clamor of voices echoed from both the second level and third floor. Natsu looked at Gray and Gajeel and the three instantly moved to cover, checking their surroundings. Gajeel's M60 suddenly snapped up to his shoulder.

"Contact; right!" Gajeel said and opened fire with his M60.

"Contact; front!" Gray said as a series of AK's opened up on him.

"Here they come boys." Natsu said calmly as he moved around his cover and fired a 40mm grenade to the opposite side of the atrium. The grenade took out five terrorists in the blast and sent them flying while Gajeel raked the third floor with his machine gun causing a grouping of terrorists to go falling over the railing. The two merc's concentrated their fire and annihilated anyone who stumbled into their killzone.

A series of bullets sparked off of Gajeel's ammo pack and Natsu's left shoulder making both of them curse.

"I got them!" Gray said as he finished swapping out his buckshot for Frag-12.

"Let's see how they like this." Gray said to himself as he popped up from his spot, aimed where he saw some terrorists leaning in and out of cover and let the explosives fly. The specialized explosive ammo shredded and destroyed anything they came into contact with whether they be stone, stuffed animal, mannequin and people. Gray didn't particularly care though what his ammo hit, so long as it stopped shooting at him he was okay with the results.

Within the time span of a few minutes, the terrorist's numbers were rapidly dropping.

Natsu had just fired off his third 40mm grenade when a sudden heavy staccato and the blasting of the support columns made him and Gajeel dive for cover.

"Fifty-cal!" Gajeel called out as he watched his cover get blown to pieces, "Dushka; it's a freaken Dushka!" Gajeel continued, as the DShK heavy machine gun let loose another burst.

"Second level, right side!" Natsu said as he saw the muzzle flash of the gun, "They must've rigged it to some sort of wheeled mount!"

"Damn it, they got us pinned again!" Gray said as the glass case above him exploded.

And then the three men heard something else.

_SKREEEEEE_

"RPG!" Natsu yelled as the support column three rows down disappeared in a tremendous blast.

"Where the fuck did that come from!?" Natsu hollered, his ears ringing slightly.

"Third floor, third floor!" Gajeel said, trying to fire his M60 but was pinned down by the DShK.

"If they get one more shot off, we're fucked!" Gray said.

The terrorist with the RPG had reloaded by then and was lining up his shot, knowing he wouldn't miss this time.

"Oh shit!" Natsu whispered.

The RPG gunner was in the process of squeezing the trigger when he suddenly disappeared from the chest up; right as one of the glass panes for the skylight shattered into a thousand little pieces.

Then the Blackhawk was overhead and the minigun roared. The skylight shattered and the stream of bullets rained down on the right side of the second level. The DShK gunner tried to maneuver his weapon to fire at the helicopter but he soon disappeared under the barrage of lead.

A fast rope was deployed and Jellal soon zipped down, his MP7 in hand and Lynx slung over his back.

"Miss me?" Jellal said before giving a thumbs up to the chopper which in turn flew away.

"You have impeccable timing my friend!" Gajeel said as he and the others hopped down from the second level to meet Jellal.

"Nice shot," Natsu said, "another second and we would've been a bloody smear on the floor."

"You know me, the hero always arrives at the last minute." Jellal said making Gray and Gajeel snicker.

"Smartass." Natsu sighed.

A series of dull thumps from the third floor that was quickly followed by gunfire and panicked screams made the team members heads snap up.

"Commander, are those your men?" Natsu asked into his radio.

"Affirmative. Your distraction worked flawlessly; my men are extracting the hostages as we speak. So far, no civilian casualties."

The merc's let out a collective sigh.

"Thanks' be to God." Natsu whispered, relieved that no one had gotten hurt.

"Natsu!" Levy said over the radio, "I just spotted five terrorists making their way to the basement from the third floor. They must've escaped from the Commanders men."

The security camera footage along with a layout of the museum appeared on his HUD.

"They seem to be heading to a large storage room but they're going to be cornered." Levy said, "They're trapped."

"Is there anyone else on the loose?" Natsu asked.

"No, those five are the only ones left."

"Roger Levy, keep us posted," Natsu said, as a waypoint appeared on his HUD, "Commander, the last five terrorists are hunkering down in the basement. We'll deal with them while you worry about the hostages."

"Acknowledged, good hunting." Kestrel said.

"Alright guys, time to finish this." Natsu said as he followed the waypoint down a series of hallways before coming to a heavy door that lead downstairs into the basement.

"Close quarters, stay alert." Natsu said as opened the door, "Gray, take point."

"Roger."

The four merc's slowly descended the stairs, weapons at the ready as their night and infrared vision lit up the darkness before them. Some emergency lights had switched on and casted even darker shadows amongst the many crates, boxes and items that were stored away for safe keeping.

A heavy "thunk" echoed from the back of the basement.

"Natsu," Levy said, "they just locked the door and are taking up positions. They know you're coming."

"Then let's not disappoint them." Natsu said.

It took minutes of careful movement and checking for traps, but the four members of Sigma team soon came upon the door; a heavy looking meld of rivets and steel that didn't look like it would simply go down with an Exo-kick. Hushed whispering could be heard from behind the doors.

"What do we do now?" Jellal asked.

Natsu studied the door for a minute.

"We'll use breaching charges to clear the door and then toss some stun grenades in to mess them up and give us a chance to clear the room." Natsu said.

"Hold it cowboy, not so fast." Cana's voice suddenly said over the radio.

"Cana, what they hell are you doing on the line!?" Natsu hissed.

"I just got off the phone with the museum director and curator. They've been following this whole thing since it started and when they found out where you were, the started to freak out."

"I should care because?" Natsu asked.

"Because behind those doors is a book that is extremely valuable to the museum; the last of its kind as the curator told me. The director said it's worth a fortune and both he and the curator, along with some generous investors and benefactors, are willing to pay top dollar if you can bring that book out in one piece."

Natsu groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. He then looked to his teammates who shook their heads.

"No promises Cana," Natsu said, "I'm not risking my team's lives over some stupid book. If we get it, we get it. If we don't, they can bill me." Natsu said and promptly ended the discussion.

The charges were quickly set in place on the door hinges, deadbolt and floor lock. Natsu and Gajeel stood to the right side of the doors while Jellal and Gray took the left. Both Natsu and Jellal held a stun grenade in their hand while Gajeel held the charge detonator.

"Three…" Natsu said, "two…one…breach!"

Gajeel hit the detonator and in a series of flashes and sparks, the doors were blown inwards and off their hinges as the quick combination of thermite and framed shaped charges easily cut through the steel. Natsu and Jellal tossed in their grenades and a second later there was a burst of light and deafening pop. The merc's moved in unison, their bodies automatically moving and following through with the training that had been drilled into them since they had joined Fairy Tail.

The charges and grenades had done their desired effects and the five remaining terrorists never stood a chance as they were unceremoniously gunned down. When the smoke cleared and the spent shell casings rolled on the floor, the mercenaries of Fairy Tail stood tall.

"Levy, Commander, all targets have been neutralized." Natsu said.

Levy let out a sigh of relief while the Commander thanked the Sigma team members for their hard work, the gratitude evident in his voice.

Taking a look around the room, and stepping over the body of a terrorist, Natsu made his way over to a heavy looking, but small hard case. Drawing his one knife, Natsu effortlessly picked the lock and popped the case open.

"Cana, is this the book you were talking about?" Natsu asked, knowing she was watching from his HUD feed.

"Yep, that's it. What's the condition?" Cana replied.

Natsu gently pulled the book from its foam cushion and carefully examined the aged shrunken leather, the string binding and fading parchment pages.

"Not a scratch." Natsu said as he opened the book, carefully thumbing the pages.

"Good to hear, I'll let the director know that the book is just the way he left it. Expect a nice fat bonus boys, because you certainly earned it this time." Cana said.

"Oh hell yeah, that's what I'm talking about!" Gajeel said as he and Gray bumped fists.

Jellal walked over to Natsu who continued to thumb through the book.

"What is it?"

Natsu shrugged his shoulders.

"From what I can see…this is supposed to be some sort of magic spell book. It's old…very old. Celtic in origin if I had to guess."

Jellal looked at the book.

"Never pegged you to be the scholarly type." He said.

"You can thank my foster dad for that; he loved to read." Natsu answered.

The two studied the book for a moment longer.

"What is this writing…Gaelic? Latin?" Jellal asked but Natsu shook his head.

"No…it's Welsh…very old Welsh." Natsu replied.

"How can you tell?" Jellal asked.

"If you travel with my foster dad long enough, you tend to pick up a thing or two." Natsu said, stopping at a page that caught his attention.

"This is supposed to be some kind of incantation…but of what kind I have no idea. I can read it however."

"What does it say?" Jellal asked.

"Not sure…the ink is fading but I can just make out, "Send me to a world apart, where hope prevails…and light battles shadow for destiny.""

Jellal raised an eyebrow as Gajeel and Gray came over upon hearing Natsu translate the book page.

"Sounds like something you'd find on the back of a fortune cookie." Gajeel said, making his compatriots chuckle.

"Impressive…can you say that in Welsh?" Jellal challenged.

Natsu chuckled.

"You bet your ass I can; "Anfon 'm i fyd ar wahân, lle mae drechaf gobaith a brwydrau golau chysgod ar gyfer tinged.""

As soon as the final words of the incantation left his mouth, the book in Natsu's hands began to glow; or, the words of the incantation itself did.

"What the hell!?" Natsu said, immediately dropping the book to the floor and stepping back, his rifle pointed at the now glowing text.

A gust of wind suddenly filled the room, even though there was no place for it to have come from. The distinct crackle of static in the air made itself known. Then the incantation drifted off the paper, the words breaking apart into individual letters and rapidly formed a circle around the four men.

"Natsu what the hell did you just do!?" Gray said as the letters began to rapidly spin around the merc's in a clockwise motion.

"I don't know!" Natsu yelled.

Another circle suddenly appeared beneath their feet, the intricate runes and symbols taking up the interior suddenly flaring to life.

Natsu's HUD and radio began to go haywire as the emergency EMP shielding kicked in as the HUD icons began to flicker and distort. His ears filled with the hiss and squeal of feedback over the radio.

"Natsu!" Levy's voice, barely audible, cut in through the feedback, "what's happening!? We just picked up a large scale electromagnetic disturbance from you HUD sensors!"

The circle glowed even brighter than it had before as a high pitched whine sounded off from the circle; like a night vision device powering up. The four men couldn't respond to Levy as they shielded their eyes from the blinding light.

"Natsu co*_static_*in!" Levy's voice called out.

The light glowed even brighter to the point where Natsu swore he could see his arms through his eyelids. The whine also increased and he felt the floor tremble beneath his boots.

"Sig*_static_*ma tea*_static_*respon*_static_*" Levy screamed, "Natsu!?"

The feedback in his ears was beginning to drown out all sound.

"Gajeel!" Levy's voice called out before finally fading away.

It all came to a climactic crescendo as the whine suddenly turned into a roar of thunder and Natsu felt the floor disappear from beneath his feet. Natsu could only let out a cry of terror as the sudden sensation of falling over took him…along with Gajeel, Gray and Jellal.

The light still ever present.

XXXX

…And little did the four men know that this sudden turn of events would lead them out of the ashes of one battle…and into the fire of what would become their most harrowing and dangerous mission yet.

XXXX

A/N: AND CUT! THAT IS IT FOR TODAY PEOPLE! Well ladies and gentlemen, what do you think? A new story has begun and I'm just getting warmed up with this one.

This took me 47 pages in my computer to write and I am very happy to be done with this chapter; it took me longer than I would have liked to get this written. I don't expect the next chapters to be as long as this one was…but you never know.

I'm sure there are a few questions on your mind at the moment, mainly regarding Lucy if I were to guess (?). Rest assured, I will cover certain plot aspects in due time. As for where our intrepid mercenaries have gone…well that should be self-explanatory. I will tell you that next chapter will take place during the middle and towards the end of the Sun Village Arc and will eventually lead into the Tartarus Arc.

As for updates with this story, I'll be honest; it'll be on and off. My college classes take up the majority of my time and my education is my top priority. I also work a part time job with hours that change every week and to top it off, I am currently balancing out two other stories…or attempting to.

I hope you guys will bear with me and be patient with this story like you have before. That's all that I ask.

Hopefully my schedule won't tie me up too much and prevent me from doing any of this.

Next time; CHAPTER 2: Contact

As per usual, if you guys have any comments or questions, please put it in your review and I'll make sure to respond to you in the next chapter. If you have anything else that you wish to ask me or clarify, you can PM me and I'll do my best to respond ASAP.

Until next time; read, review and most importantly of all, HAPPY READING!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hello everyone and welcome back! Sorry for the very long delay but as you know I have been very busy with college and I was working on some other stories which I have since posted; hence the delay for this chapter. And then there were the holidays so…yeah, you get the idea.

Needless to say, it has been a little rough for me recently balancing everything out but luckily I haven't burned my brain to a crisp yet…I hope. As much as I enjoy it, I can't devote all my time to writing…much to my own chagrin.

Still, I seriously appreciate you all being patient with me when it comes to stuff like this.

So, last time we saw a different take on the Fairy Tail as Natsu, Gajeel, Gray and Jellal take on the role of Private Military Contractors. After being called in for a mission and subsequently shooting anything and everyone that moves, Natsu accidently triggers a magic incantation that makes him and his team disappear from the face of the Earth. We now pick up with the result of said event…and move on into the middle and end of the Sun Village Arc.

Also to make things easy and to prevent confusion, I'll be referring to the boy's callsigns respectively so as to prevent them from getting mixed up with the normal FT cast. In case you have forgotten, their callsigns are _**Scar/Boss (Natsu), Frost (Gray), Steel (Gajeel) and Grim (Jellal)**_. I'll start this after the beginning half of the chapter. Speaking of Natsu/Scar, in the previous chapter, I described him having a prosthetic arm. I personally had problems describing it so to give you a better idea of what Scar's arm looks like, I advise you to look up an image of the _Nanosuit 2_ from the _Crysis_ game series. The arm on the suit is what I was going for when I described what Scar's new arm and hand look like. (Note: I do not own _Crysis_ or anything associated with it; I was just pointing out a reference that's all.)

Also of note, I'm still keeping this story at the "T" rating but if things continue out the way they are, I might change the rating to "M". For now, expect harsh language and some descriptive details but nothing major…yet.

So before we continue, here is a shout out to you guys who kindly left a review:

_**MissBird93:**_ Hello there and welcome to the story! Sorry for the long delay, I hope this chapter makes up for it!

_**PitbullColin:**_ Hello there and welcome to the story; it's good to see you again! I hope this was worth the wait.

_**btrxv:**_ Hello there and welcome, I'm glad to know that you not only are you enjoying this story but you're enjoying my other ones as well. I assure you, what happened to Lucy will be explained in a chapter or two but until then, here's some action to take the edge off. Yep, 21k words…I was even surprised by the length but I'm a sap for details!

_**SPaceAlchemy7: **_Hello there and welcome to the new story. Sorry for the delay but here you go, thanks for being patient!

So, ladies and gents, without further ado-let's continue our story!

P.S. There's an obvious (but edited) reference to _Red vs. Blue_ in this chapter; let's see if you notice it.

XXXX

CHAPTER 2: Contact

XXXX

_**Earthland X791…**_

XXXX

Everything blurred together at once.

His senses were scrambled due to the sudden loss of the floor beneath his feet, the blinding white light that filled his vision and the roar of air rushing past his ears as he fell down and down, his arms flailing about trying grab purchase and finding nothing.

His breathing was forced, rapid and ragged.

His heart thundered in his chest like the staccato beat of a machine gun.

In short, Natsu Dragneel was too shocked and panicked to really understand what the hell was going on.

He continued to fall until just as quickly, he felt something hit his arms, legs, shoulders and back. The light had given way to green and the soft glow of sunlight. The rapid sound of wood snapping and breaking barely registered with his ears but he felt his descent slow. He was still tumbling but not as fast as he had been before.

It was then that Natsu realized he had been falling through the canopy of tree tops and the branches that followed.

He hit a particularly sturdy branch-snapping it in two-before tumbling over to his front…and subsequently coming into contact with the ground; a mixture of hard dirt and soft grass. For a moment, Natsu simply laid on his front, not daring to move a muscle as his senses slowly returned to him.

The book he had been holding bounced off the back of his helmet, earning a mumbled explicative from the private contractor.

He wasn't dead, that much was certain. Because if he was, he doubted he would be feeling the pain in his limbs and back. Sluggishly rolling onto his back, Natsu closed his eyes against the glimmer of the sun through the tree tops and his mask. He inhaled slowly and groaned, finding his voice.

"What the hell was that all about?" Natsu croaked.

The sudden sound of branches breaking followed by surprised cries made his eyes snap open and look skyward.

He, blinked and three simple words left his mouth.

"Oh damn it." Natsu sighed despondently…just as Gray landed on top of him with a violent thud, making Natsu gasp in both pain and shock.

Gray was subsequently followed by Jellal, earning a pained cry from both Gray and Natsu before finally being followed by Gajeel. The heavily armored mercenary landed on his comrades with the force of two cars colliding. The impact caused the ground to sink slightly from the sudden pile of heavily armed and armored men.

For a minute, nobody moved.

Then, there was a collective groan of pain as the mercs regained their senses.

"What," Gajeel said, coughing, "what the fuck was that?"

"I don't know but get off me I can't breathe." Jellal said before he too began to clear his lungs.

"You can't breathe?!" Gray hissed, "You two assholes landed on top of me and boss for crying out loud!"

"Speaking of which," Gajeel said as he rolled off Gray and Jellal, earning relieved sighs from the two, "where is he? I remember him reading that book and then we were falling."

"Gert uff ughf meh." A muffled voice said from beneath Gray.

"Boss?" Gray said, craning his neck to the side as Gajeel pulled Jellal off of him.

"_Get. Off. Of. Me. You. _DUMBASS_." _Natsu growled vehemently through clenched teeth. Despite his voice being muffled, his words came through loud and clear.

"Holy crap; sorry!" Gray said as he pushed himself up and off of Natsu…who lay in the small crater of dirt.

Quickly rising to their feet, Gajeel and Gray grabbed Natsu by his arms and pulled him up to his feet as he groaned and coughed all the way.

Resting his hands against his knees, Natsu took a series of deep, rapid breathes.

"Is everyone," Natsu gasped, "alright?"

"I'm fine...I think." Jellal said as he dusted off his poncho.

"We're standing aren't we?" Gajeel said.

"Boss, what the fuck was that all about!?" Gray spat as he grabbed Natsu by his ballistic vest, giving him a hard shake.

"What the hell did you do!?"

Natsu shoved Gray back and cracked his neck.

"Ease off Gray," Natsu hissed, "how the hell should I know?!"

"You read whatever was in that damn spell book so I expect that would give an answer." Gray said with equal venom, "Because one moment we're in the museum and the next we're wherever the hell _here_ is."

"Oh, and like you expected any of that to happen!? For crying out loud Gray, I thought it was just some two thousand year old bullshit! How the hell was I supposed to know it was going to go off like that?!"

"Gray, Boss, relax." Jellal said as he stepped between the two, arms raised in a disarming manner.

"This isn't the time to panic." Jellal said, his tone measured.

"Don't panic, are you for real!?" Gajeel said, "We just got fucking teleported out of thin air and crashed through a bunch of trees into the middle of nowhere; how can you expect us to be calm!?"

"The worst thing we can do is panic and-"

"It's nice to know you're keeping your head in the game "mister I don't give a shit."" Gray said and received a glare from Jellal.

"Watch it Gray or I'll give you something else to worry about." Jellal hissed.

Further argument was stopped however when Natsu rose to his full height, shoulders set back and voice raised in the commanding tone he reserved only for certain situations.

"All of you, shut the hell up and calm the fuck down; now!" Natsu barked, making his teammates clam up instantly.

"I am not going to put up with any of your crap; not after what just happened!" Natsu said through clenched teeth.

"But Boss-" Gray said but Natsu cut him off.

"Gray." Natsu growled in warning and his second in command immediately closed his mouth.

A tense silence befell the men for a while before Natsu sighed deeply and placed his hands on his hips.

"Listen, I'm just as freaked out as you guys are over what just happened. But Jellal is right; we need to stay calm. I have no idea what happened with that book or where we are right now. What we need to do is remain calm and reestablish comm's with Levy to let her know we're alright and activate our emergency transponders so we can get an evac. So let's boot 'em up and see if we can get out of here. C'mon, transponders on."

The men set about their task and activated their emergency transponders; small emergency beacons that were shelled in a small, ballistic hard case on their belts. A turn of a knob and pull of a pin chain caused a green light to dully flick on the square shaped device. The beacon was now broadcasting up to a satellite uplink that would relay the wireless signal back to Fairy Tail HQ.

Natsu activated his wrist computer, glad to see that it was working as his fingers glided over the touch screen. He quickly rebooted his HUD and radio systems as the others did the same; linking back to one another. He then punched in Levy's frequency to his computer and placed his fingers on the radio.

"Fairy Tail Command this is Sigma Lead, do you copy over?" Natsu said only to receive static in return.

"Fairy Tail, I say again, this is Sigma One-One, how copy? Over?"

Static again. Natsu sighed and pulled his radio from his back, manually adjusting the signal, small antenna and keypunching the code back in.

"Fairy Tail…Levy, its Natsu do you read?" Natsu said, breaking radio procedure by using given name, "We're alright, I say again, we're alright. If you're receiving this, please respond, over?"

Still the hiss of static.

Natsu sighed and looked to his teammates.

"How about you guys?" Natsu asked.

"Negative boss, my radio's not picking up anything." Gajeel said.

"Maybe we're getting interference from the forest?" Jellal said.

"Are we out of range or something?" Gray asked.

Natsu shook his head and looked to the sky, still covered by the tree canopy.

"No, these radios were developed by the U.S. Air Force; they're designed to function in an environment like this no matter the conditions. They either patch into a satellite uplink or piggyback through the ionosphere to the nearest radio relay whether it be friendly or hostile."

"Isn't that bad thing?" Gray asked.

"Not if you are using Tier One encryption on your comm's, which ours use by the way." Natsu replied still fiddling with his radio.

Suddenly, the men's wrist computers and HUD's flared to life as red warnings popped up against the blue overlay.

UNABLE TO CONFIRM/CONNECT TO SATELLITE RELAY

RELAY SIGNALS DETECTED: ZERO (0)

UPLINK TO RELAY STATUS: INACCESSIBLE

TRANSPONDER SYSTEMS WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DISABLED UNTIL UPLINK IS CONFIRMED

LONG RANGE COMMUNICATIONS ARE UNAVAILABE

RECOMMENDATION: LOCALIZE COMMUNICATIONS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

The men disabled the warnings flashing before their eyes and uneasily looked to one another.

"Does that mean, what I think it means?" Gajeel said as Natsu let out an irritated and suppressed groan of anger.

"Yep," Gray said, "our comm's our down. In fact, there isn't even a satellite signal for us to use…which shouldn't be possible."

"Are we being jammed?" Gajeel asked.

"No. Our computers would be running bypass programs to break through a transmission; the firewall systems would be in overdrive…it doesn't make any sense." Jellal said before looking to Natsu who sighed deeply.

"What do we do Natsu?" Jellal asked.

The team leader was quiet for a moment before snapping his fingers in thought.

"Switch to team frequency for now and start referring to each other by callsign. If there is a radio nearby, we don't know who could be listening in." Natsu said as he switched on his IFF system.

The others did the same.

Before Natsu's eyes, in the upper left corner of his HUD where his IFF/Radio display was located, the name "SCAR" appeared.

Appearing above the blue triangles superimposed over his team Scar watched as Gray changed to "FROST", Gajeel to "STEEL" and Jellal to "GRIM."

"Okay…okay, we'll worry about comm's later. For now…let's find that god damn book. If I reread that passage it should send us right back and we can put this all behind us."

After quickly surveying their surroundings, Steel found the book and tossed it to Scar. Remembering where the section was, he quickly thumbed through the pages…only to do a double take when he reached the desired passage.

"Uhm guys…" Scar said as he flipped the book around, "look."

"…What in the hell?" Frost said, his eyes widening behind his shades.

The writing, no, the entire text in the book had changed; no longer bearing a resemblance to either Welsh of Gaelic.

It was an impossible combination of the two. A language that was a complete unknown to the mercs.

"What…what is that?" Grim said as he observed the writing.

"I have no idea. It looks like a cross between Welsh and Gaelic but I can't really be sure. In fact, I don't think this any language from where we're from."

"What could have made it change?" Steel said.

"I don't know. Maybe when I said that incantation it changed the text or something." Scar said before letting out a lengthy sigh.

"Damn it." He muttered before pocketing the book away in a spare pouch.

"Why can't you just repeat whatever it was and return us home?" Steel asked, slightly agitated.

"Because for all we know it was a onetime thing and if I say it again, I might botch whatever it says now and send us somewhere else. Can't take the risk."

Frost sighed and shook his head.

"So what happens now?" He said.

"…This book brought us here for some reason. So that means there has to be people somewhere nearby who may know how to help us with this. It's a longshot but it's our only option. Needless to say guys, we got some walking to do."

"So we just walk around in a potentially hostile country or whatever this place is supposed to be?" Steel said, his tone incredulous, "Until we find someone who may or may not help us provided they don't run away screaming when they see us?"

Scar simply nodded.

"Pretty much; yeah." He said and Steel sighed.

"Well…we've been through worse." He admitted.

Scar nodded and looked to the sky.

"From the look of the sun, I'd say it's probably twelve or one in the afternoon, which means we still have plenty of daylight to work with."

He then checked the compass on his HUD and turned until the radial was pointing "N" for north. He pointed forward, behind the others.

"My compass says North is that way, so we'll start from there." Scar said, "We'll move single file but at a five meter spread. If anything happens, I don't want to lose the whole squad to a single hit."

He then pointed to Grim, himself, Steel and Frost.

"Grim, you take point, Steel and I will cover the middle while Frost, you take the rear. I want your eyes open and to limit your comm' chatter. We may not be the only ones out here so let's play it safe. We clear?"

"You got it boss." Steel said.

"Right." Grim said.

"Transparent." Frost said.

"Oh!" Scar said if remembering something, "Check your ammo and weapons. We don't know how long we'll be here so manage your gear."

The men did as they were told, Scar included, but found something rather peculiar.

"This…this is weird." Steel said as he checked the digital ammo counter on his M60's feed chute and the one in his HUD, "according to this, my ammo's been topped off."

"Same here." Grim said, "All the spent mag's for my Lynx and MP7 have been reloaded."

"Ditto for the grenades and explosive charges we used." Frost said.

Scar was silent as he looked at the new grenade loaded into his F2000's underslung launcher.

"Why do I have a feeling that we're walking into a fight…and that whatever teleported us here was gearing us up for one?"

The others didn't answer, only looking at each other uncomfortably. Scar shook his head and motioned for his team to fall into formation as he began walking into the underbrush.

"C'mon boys," he said, "let's get walking. We have a long day ahead of us."

And so the mercenaries began to venture into the new but unknown world they had entered.

XXXX

"How long have we been walking now?" Frost said over the team frequency on his radio.

"Dunno." Steel said, his M60 resting on his shoulder but ready to be snapped to at a moment's notice, "An hour, half an hour maybe?"

"Feels longer." Frost said, "I swear it's the forest or something; throws off your sense of time."

"Well don't be going crazy on us now," Steel said, looking over his shoulder at his longtime friend, "because if you lose it here, you'll be in a world of hurt. And I don't want to tell Juvia that your last moments were of you going stir crazy on us."

Frost snorted.

"Not if you go first." He said before taking a look on his left and right before looking at his Kryptek Raid uniform.

"Am I the only one who thinks we stick out too much at the moment? I mean, we look like a bunch of walking, talking cinder blocks for crying out loud."

"No," Steel replied, "but then again, I don't think it's a good time to be worried about whether or not we make a fashion statement or not."

"I'm serious dude, in this environment we're sitting ducks. I mean, our uniforms should at least have a reversible lining or something like Foliage A-Tacs or maybe Kryptek Mandrake and Multicam on the inside. Hell, I'd even settle for some old M81 Woodland camo if it made me stick out less."

"Well, we didn't know we'd end up teleported to another freakin' part of the world now did we?" Steel hissed.

"Cut the chatter you two." Scar said, his eyes forward and tone firm, "Grim, you see anything yet?"

"No boss; the foliage is too heavy." Grim said before stopping and turning to face Natsu, "I have no idea what's ahead of us."

Scar sighed and looked at the surrounding woods.

"Alright, we need to find a landmark or something that will point us in some sort of direction." Scar said before pointing to Frost and Grim.

"I want you two to break left and right and take a look around; go about seventy five meters and then go to one hundred and fifty meters. If you don't find anything, report back here."

"Right." The two contractors said in unison before going their separate ways.

"What about me?" Steel asked.

"I have something special in mind for you." Scar said before pointing up.

Steel followed Scar's finger, looked up, looked back to Scar, looked up again and then back to Scar; shaking his head this time. Scar could almost picture the wide eyed look on his teammate's face through his goggles and mandible guard.

"Boss you can't be serious?" Steel said after swallowing hard.

"I am," Scar said as he produced a pair of square shaped, high powered, electronic binoculars from his belt and pointed to a nearby-and rather tall-tree, "I want you to take the binoc's and see if you can spot anything from the top of this tree; I need you to be our eyes in the sky."

"Boss you know I have a thing about heights." Steel said, "Planes and helicopters are one thing I can do but climbing is another!"

Scar rolled his eyes and shoved the binoculars into Steel's hands.

"Quit being such a baby and get to climbing." Scar said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"Yes sir." Steel mumbled and made his way to the tree. Finding a foot and handhold he began to climb, albeit slowly.

Scar sighed, shaking his head a little. For a grown man, Steel could be such a pain sometimes. He wondered how his foster parents Metalicana and Grandeeney put up with him…scratch that, considering who they were, he didn't want to know.

The sound of breaking bark and a slight yelp from Steel caught his attention. He looked up to see that Steel was only halfway up the tree.

"Seriously?" Scar said over the radio, "You're still climbing?"

"Hey don't rush me, I'm pretty high up!" Steel snapped back, "Shouldn't I have a rope or safety gear for this sort of shit?!"

"You're wearing body armor and a freakin' Exo-Frame," Steel said, "I think you're covered."

The sound of rustling brush announced the return of Grim and Frost.

"Find anything?" Scar asked as the two merc's came up to him.

"Nothing as far I could see." Frost said.

"Same here, there's too much foliage messing with my scope." Grim said, patting his rifle.

"I figured as much," Scar said, "looks like we'll have to rely on Steel after all."

"Speaking of Steel," Grim said looking around, "where is he?"

"I made him climb that tree over there so we can get a better look around." Scar said nonchalantly.

"What?!" Grim and Frost said in unison, a laugh threatening to break on their voices.

"Help me guys," Steel called out in desperation, drawing the others attention, "for the love of God!"

"Why'd you make him climb all the way up there?" Frost asked, "You know he has a thing about that, right?"

Scar shrugged.

"Meh, I have to bust his balls every now and then; figured now was a good time as ever."

"I can hear you, you jackass!" Steel called out over the radio.

"Dude, you're still climbing?" Frost chimed in, "Man, that's just sad."

"Blow me Frost, you're not the one being harassed by a bird up here!" Steel retaliated.

"Quit making friends and hurry up Steel." Scar said.

"Shoo! Shoo!" Steel said and there was a series of screeches over the radio, "I said shoo; you stupid bird!"

Fifteen minutes later, Steel completed his climb.

"Okay, I'm at the top." Steel said uneasily.

"What can you see?" Scar said over a slight hiss of static.

"What!?" Scar replied.

"What. Can. You. See?" Scar said, annunciating each word.

"What can I see? What can I see!?" Steel yelled over the radio, "I can see _everything_, because I'm at the top of the damn world!"

"Steel." Scar growled.

Steel was quiet for a few minutes as he took a look through the binoculars.

"I got nothing to the east or west," Steel said, "But I can see something to the north of here. It looks like some sort of village but I can't be sure. I don't know if it's the distance or what but there's something weird about it."

"Define weird." Frost said.

"It looks like it's covered in snow and ice." Steel replied.

The contractors looked to one another in surprise. Snow? In this weather? According to their HUD's, it was at least seventy five degree's here in the shade of the forest, possibly even warmer outside of it.

"I don't know Boss," Frost said, "that sounds awfully out of place for this weather."

"What other options do we have? You heard Steel, it's the only place for miles as far as he can tell. It may be our best shot at getting some straight answers." Scar said.

"I don't know Boss," Steel said, pushing the electronic binoculars to their maximum magnification, "I got a weird feeling about this."

"You're not the only one." Scar muttered.

"Anyway," Steel replied, "I marked the place with a waypoint, should be reaching our HUD's now."

A pulsating orange diamond appeared on the contractor's displays with a distance counter near it. Grim let out a low whistle.

"Two and a half miles away. Good thing we're wearing Exo-Frames otherwise that would be murder on the feet with all the gear we're carrying."

"Well boys, looks like we've got a bit of a walk ahead of us, so let's get going." Scar said.

"Hey!" Steel called out, "I'm still up here you know?"

"Then get down from there." Frost replied.

"How!?"

"Just charge up your Exo-Frame to max power and do a power slam; it works every time." Grim replied.

"Are you sure?" Steel replied.

"I'm talking to you aren't I?" Grim said, slightly annoyed.

Steel was silent for a moment before he uttered a quick prayer, focused his Exo-Frames power on his arms and legs and jumped. He came crashing down seconds later, landing in a perfect crouch but cratering the ground beneath him. As the dust settled, Steel stood on shaky legs and wobbled back to his team.

"P-please don't make me do that again." Steel whispered as he numbly handed back Scar's binoculars, making the latter and co snicker.

"No promises big guy." Scar said as he patted his heavy weapons expert's shoulder.

"C'mon," Scar said, "we're burning daylight so let's move it; double time." Scar said as he set off at a brisk pace.

Clearing the cobwebs in his head, Steel, Frost and Grim followed…unaware of the fateful encounter they were about to walk into.

XXXX

The distance meter in their HUD's was starting to dwindle, just like the foliage around them. Scar had ordered his team to break formation and move freely but to stay close at the same time. The trees were clearing and the village was coming into view.

But as the men drew closer, they felt the air begin to cool and it seemed like a layer of both thin and thick ice had formed on the vegetation. Something defiantly was not right.

"Eye's front, safeties off." Scar said as he kept his eyes trained down his F2000's holographic sight.

"If anything happens, we go weapons free."

"Roger." The others said in unison.

Soon enough, the mercenaries broke through the edge of the forest and into a sight that was both amazing and shocking.

Ice.

Everywhere the men looked they saw ice. It covered the ground and buildings, in a crystal like sheen. But that was not what drew the men's attention.

Towering over the newcomers were giants. That was the only thing that could describe what they were seeing. Giants, the towering human monsters that they only existed in stories, stood frozen over the contractors like statues…petrified in whatever it was they were doing before-as it would seem-they were frozen mid stride.

"What in the hell?" Scar said aloud.

"Are you guys seeing this because I sure as hell ain't believing it." Frost said.

"I…I'm at a loss for words." Grim said.

"Ditto." Added Steel.

Scar lowered his rifle and cautiously approached one of the frozen giants, despite the warning of his teammates. Looking the giant over, Scar tapped the ice with his knuckle and received a solid "TAK, TAK," in return.

The giant didn't move an inch. In fact, Scar was pretty sure the thing wasn't even aware that it was frozen.

"It's alright." Scar said, "It ain't going anywhere anytime soon."

The others moved to meet up with Scar as they continued to look about the village and it's larger than life inhabitants.

"What the hell are these things?" Steel asked.

"Giants." Scar said, "What else can they be?"

"You're oddly accepting of this." Steel replied.

"It's all I can do." Scar replied as he rested his left palm against the ice, feeling the cooling sensation permeate through his glove.

"What I'm more concerned about is _what_ happened here." Scar said.

"I know what you mean," Grim said, "these things look like they were just going about their business and then…"

"Someone opened up the freezer from hell on these guys." Frost finished, adjusting his AA-12 in his grip.

"Yeah, that's an understatement." Grim replied.

Scar sighed and turned back to his team as he shook his head slightly.

"Alright guys," he said, "It's obvious we've stumbled onto something big here. So let's take a look around and-"

An explosion from off in the distance cut Scar off and the mercs instantly snapped into combative stances; weapons raised and aimed in the direction of the sound.

"What was that!?" Steel asked.

"No clue," Scar said, "but it sounded nearby. Not close but not very far either."

Scar then looked for a place to identify the sound and snapped his hand out, pointing to a nearby rooftop.

"Rooftop; now!" Scar said as he ran to the aforementioned building and used the power of his Exo-Frame to scale side, his team right at his sides.

Vaulting up and over the edge, the men dropped to their stomachs in the prone position and crawled to the opposite side. Given the buildings height, they were offered a full view of the surrounding area. Scar dug into his belt and retrieved his binoculars while Grim scanned the area with his sniper scope.

"There, in the forest to the north." Scar said as he focused his binoc's.

From within the dense foliage of the woods, plumes of dust and smoke began to rise into the air indicating that small scale battles were underway.

"I can't see jack," Grim said, "what about you boss?"

"Same here." Scar said as he scanned the treetops from side to side, seeing if he could find an opening into the forest.

Scar sighed deeply and pocketed his binoculars, tapping his right finger on the rooftop in thought.

"What do we do Scar?" Frost asked and pointed his shotgun in the direction of the fighting.

"We don't know who or what's down there."

Pushed himself up into a crouch and pointed his free arm to the woods.

"We're going in." Scar said.

"Is that wise?" Steel asked, "Frost has a point."

"For all we know, there are people in there that could use help. Those same people may be able to help us out…and may owe us a favor in return for saving their hides." Scar said.

"So we're not just doing this out of the good of our hearts?" Grim asked and Scar shrugged.

"Whatever helps you sleep Grim." Scar said, "We'll split up. Steel, I want you to take a flanking route to the left, while, Frost, Grim and I will push up the middle-that seems to be where most of the fighting is. Stay in radio contact as much as you can and watch your fire if one of us is close by."

"How do we determine if someone is friend or foe?" Steel asked.

"Trust your IFF software and pray you don't make the wrong choice." Scar said as he checked his rifle's magazine, "If it comes down to it, do what we always do."

"Trust our guts?" Frost asked as he and the others stood.

"Bingo." Scar said as he hopped down from the roof, landing in a cratering crouch, the others hot on his heels.

"Get tactical Sigma Team; let's roll!"

The men crashed into the underbrush, weapons raised and fingers ready to shoot. Steel ran off to the left, following a natural trail while Frost followed a series of clearings in the brush to the right. Scar pushed up the middle while Grim scaled one of the large trees and leapt from tree limb to tree limb; the perfect vantage points for sniper fire. Frost stayed close and followed underneath Grim.

"Grim, Frost," Scar said, "I'm picking up a trail here. Someone came crashing through here not too long ago, I'm going to follow it."

"Copy that boss, stay safe." Grim said as he swung from a vine to a limb.

Scar simply grunted and watched as his IFF tag disappeared from his line of sight.

Moving from branch to branch, Grim came to a stop when the trees began to even out near a clearing. His HUD was lit up with at least six unknown contacts before him.

Dropping to a crouch on a large, sturdy branch, Grim brought his Lynx up to his shoulder and scanned ahead with his scope. His trigger finger pushed the safety off and he began to calm his breathing.

"Frost," Grim muttered, "I see six of 'em. I repeat, six contacts ahead of us. IFF isn't registering, they're all in red."

"I see them." Frost said as he used the POV video share of their HUD's, "Looks like…three women and three men. The women don't appear to be armed but the three guys are."

"Judging by how they look I think we can exclude the women as the bad guys here." Grim said, as he watched the women argue with the men about something. One was a blonde, one was a redhead and the other was a bluenette. The men ranged in height and build but they all gave off the look of professional scumbags.

"The men are armed; heavily." Grim added, "I see one gun, sniper rifle from the look of it, from the guy up high on the ridgeline there. The other two seem to have a sword and some sort of hammer…weird."

"So I see." Frost said as he crept his way through the brush cutting the video feed and marking the women as friendlies, "I'll move in from the side and take out the big guy first. You handle the sniper?"

"Already zeroing him in." Grim said, just in time to watch the sniper let off a series of shots with his rifle; the gunshots cracking out like a whip.

"Damn," Frost hissed, "better make this fast."

As Grim watched the battle unfold, the sniper saw much to his surprise the woman with the red hair manipulate her hair-of all things-to catch the bullets from the rifle. However, the moment was short lived as the women moved in to attack only to have her hair cut but by the man with the sword.

As the woman doubled back, the blonde pulled a key off her belt and summoned a man with a pair of scissors on both his hands while giving off the appearance of a crab. As the summoned man quickly tended to the woman before disappearing, the woman once again used her keys to summon someone-no, something-from another key.

"Frost," Grim quickly hissed into his radio, "I don't know if you've seen anything yet but these people aren't normal."

"I saw them," Frost said, "but they haven't seen me. Dare I say it but aren't they using the same magic that got us stuck here?"

"Magic?" Grim said, continuing to watch the fight.

"Only thing I can think of," Frost said as the rapport of the sniper rifle barked out again and the melee increased its pace, "the fight's picking up, you ready?"

"As soon as you seen him drop." Grim replied as he trained his mil-dot reticle onto the sniper on the ridge.

The man was prone, balancing his rifle on a fallen log, unaware that he was about to meet his maker. The distance between the two wasn't that far so Grim didn't need to factor in elevation and distance. The 12.7mm round of the Lynx could easily reach out and touch the second sniper as if it were child's play.

Steadying his breathing and listening to the beating of his heart till it all but slowed to a crawl and the world disappeared around him, Grim depressed the trigger of his rifle.

XXXX

Lucy Hearfilia watched as Wendy broke free of Lala's hammer while Flare used her hair to capture Hiroshi. The arrival of the former Raven Tail mage was a surprise but a welcomed one none the less. The Celestial Spirit mage thought she and Wendy were done for after they had gotten separated from Gray and Natsu. The treasure hunters they had encountered were hell bent on taking her Spirit Keys after giving up on their previous goal of obtaining the Moon Drip.

But seeing as how Happy had let the damn thing break, Lucy knew they were in for it.

But now that they had gained the upper hand, Lucy was confident that she and the others could take down the treasure hunters and make them pay for harming the giants of the Sun Village.

"Why you…!" Drake called out, catching Lucy's attention as the sniper trained his rifle on her.

Lucy smirked.

"Found you." A voice said, startling Drake. Looming over the treasure hunter with his trademark smirk was one of Lucy's most trusted spirits; Loke.

"He made it!" Lucy said in triumph. Her sneak attack had worked flawlessly.

"Lucy!" Loke said as he reared his fist back, intent on striking Drake-

_**BANG!**_

-when the snipers head, along with half of his upper body suddenly exploded in a shower of blood and bone.

From somewhere behind Lucy and the other girls, a gunshot echoed out from amongst the trees. It was a gunshot that differed from Drake's rifle. It was a deep, heavy sound that reverberated deep into the chest. The sound that only the most powerful of guns possessed.

"What!?" Loke said as he stumbled back in horror at what he had just witnessed.

The sudden display of display of violence did not go unnoticed by the others, as well.

Lucy gawked in wide eyed horror as Drake's arms tumbled down the ridge; his one arm still holding his rifle. Loke was quickly at her side, ready to protect his master. Wendy's hands flew to her mouth as she let out a muffled scream of fright at the gruesome display while Flare simply stood slack jawed.

"DRAKE!" Lala cried out in both shock and despair at the loss of his comrade.

"NO!" Hiroshi yelled.

From out of the nearby bush, a figure darted out of its cover with surprising speed before leaping up into the air up and over Wendy and Lala. Wendy saw that the figure was actually a heavily armored man who was arching his body and extending his left arm which held what appeared to be a very large gun.

Still in midair, the man aimed his weapon at Lala and opened fire. Wendy leapt back just in time to watch as barrage of twelve gauge buckshot rained down on Lala. Lala brought his hammer up to shield him from the attack but a few pellets managed to cut into him, making his stance falter.

Landing in a half crouch, Frost continued to fire his AA-12 single handedly, glad that his Exo-Frame and gun's excellent buffer spring made the recoil nonexistent.

The second barrage proved too much for Lala to handle and his body jerked back as the shotgun shells tore into him. His hammer wavered in his grip and Lala fell to his knee's which left Frost with the perfect opening to strike. Not bothering to reload his gun, Frost charged Lala and delivered a super charged roundhouse kick to the head which snapped his neck; giving him a quick and painless death.

"NO!" Hiroshi raged, "YOU BASTARD!"

The swordsman ignored Flare and who was just in the process of capturing him when her charged Frost, sword poised to strike. Frost held his ground however, keeping his hands at his sides and off his shotgun. Just as Hiroshi drew closer, the distinct crack of Grim's Lynx echoed out once more and struck Hiroshi's sword. With a metallic "CLANG" the top of Hiroshi's sword split apart and caused him to stumble in his attack; the supersonic bullet easily threw off his momentum.

Frost ran towards Hiroshi who was just recovering from Grim's attack. Although his sword was broken, that didn't make it any less dangerous and Hiroshi raised what was left of his weapon to strike at Frost. When he was in range, Frost ducked down as Hiroshi struck out, both his hands snapping out to latch onto Hiroshi's forearm and wrist and locking the arm over his right shoulder. Frost then brought up his right knee into Hiroshi's abdomen with enough force that he instantly let go of his weapon while coughing up blood with a startled gasp.

Frost, still using the right side of his body, used his right leg to knock Hiroshi's leg out from under him, causing him to fall back just as Frost used his right arm to snap Hiroshi's arm all the way back, breaking it.

Hiroshi let out a blood curdling scream but was quickly put out of his misery when Frost drew his Glock and silenced him with a ten millimeter round to the head. Frost let go of the Hiroshi's body and holstered his Glock before nonchalantly cracking his neck and knuckles.

To the still gawking mages shock and horror, Frost acted like the whole fight had hardly proven to be a challenge at all. Quietly reloading his AA-12, Frost looked to the tree tops and gave a two fingered salute which quickly turned into a thumbs up.

A minute later, there came the rustling of tree branches before another man-dressed in a similar manner to that of the new arrival-landed in a cratering crouch.

"Who are…_what are_ these guys!?" Lucy whispered, her shock not completely fading as Grim calmly rose and walked over to Frost.

"Sorry about the mess." Grim said quietly as he gestured with his rifle to Drake's remains.

"Don't be, we've seen worse; much worse." Frost said as rested his gun on his shoulder, "Nice work with sword guy there. Wasn't really sure what I was going to do for a moment."

"Any time brother." Grim said and the two men promptly bumped fists in camaraderie.

"W-Who…who are you people!?" Lucy spoke up, finding her voice.

Were these men truly people, Lucy wondered. What these two men had done in a matter of seconds didn't seem to be even possible for humans. They were more like monsters.

Walking, talking and armored, monsters.

"We're the guys who just saved you from certain death, thank you very much." Frost said as he and Grim turned to face Lucy, Wendy and Flare.

"Don't mind him." Grim said as he and Frost approached the trio, "He's just…just…just…"

Grim's words died on his lips as he finally took in the mages appearances. And when his mind finally registered what or rather who he was looking at, all rational thought seemingly began to grind to a halt.

"N-No way…"Grim whispered as he breathing began to audibly pick up, "what is this...what the hell is this!?"

"What?" Lucy said as she looked from Grim to Frost, whose hands had begun to shake as he lifted his sunglasses from his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked, "Why are you looking at us like that?"

"It can't be…" Frost said in disbelief, his eyes wide, "Lucy…Wendy…Flare, is that you?"

"H-how?" Wendy said in surprise, "How do you know our names!?"

Her nose twitched as two very familiar scents filled her sense of smell. Wendy gasped slightly and looked from Frost and Grim in confusion.

"Why…why do you two smell like them?" Wendy said as she took a step back from the mercenaries, "Why do you smell like-"

Wendy was cut off however when Grim suddenly drew his MP7 and Frost snapped his AA-12 up to his shoulder, ready to fire. Both guns were aimed at the three mages as the men began to bark out frantic orders.

"HANDS; SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!" Frost barked as his eyes instantly turned into the most fearsome glare either of the mages had seen.

"HOLD YOUR HANDS RIGHT WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!" Grim yelled.

"What!?" Lucy said in panic, "Wait; calm down!"

"I SAID SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!" Frost barked and pointed his gun at Lucy.

"Okay, okay!" Lucy said as she quickly raised her hands above her head.

Flare's hair slowly began to move at her ankles but Lucy noticed the forming spell.

"Flare," Lucy whispered, her tone pleading, "don't!"

"Why?" Flare said, "I can easily take them down!"

"After what they just did to those treasure hunters? No!" Lucy hissed, "Just stay calm and do as they say; no one else needs to die today."

Reluctantly, Flare complied and raised her hands just as Wendy did.

"Boss, boss!" Grim said as he jammed his one hand onto his radio, while his other held his MP7, "Boss do you copy, over!?"

There was an audible hiss of static before a deep growl sounded off from somewhere in the distance. But amongst the roar, the mages and the mercenaries swore they heard something akin to a high pitched whine.

A text sentence appeared on Frost and Grim's HUD screens; ULTRASONIC FREQUENCY DETECTED.

Just as the notice appeared, Flare, Lucy and Wendy suddenly burst into puffs of smoke. When it cleared, the three girls had been turned into…children?

"Uhm…Grim?" Frost said as he took a slight step back.

"I'm seeing but I ain't believing." Grim said as he regarded the girls in their downsized state.

"Hey!" Lucy said as she pointed at the mercenaries, "how come you're not little like us!?"

"For the record," Frost said as he pointed his gun back at Lucy, "we're not from here, so your guess is as good as mine. And keep your hands raised."

"Really!?" Lucy said as she eyed the gun.

"Hands." Grim said through clenched teeth, "Now."

Reluctantly, the mages complied.

"Who are you guys anyway?" Lucy asked.

But she didn't receive an answer. The two men in front of her remained stoic as they kept their guns trained on the girls.

It was only minutes later that there was another puff of smoke and girls were back to the way they were before.

"We changed back!" Wendy said as she looked over her hands.

"I wonder what caused that to happen?" Lucy said before noticing Frost, still pointing his gun at Lucy.

"You can put that down you know," Lucy bit out, "we're not going to hurt you or anything. Why would we? You helped save us after all."

"That remains to be seen." Frost said as Steel pressed his free hand to his comm's headset.

"Scar do you copy?" Grim said again, "Frost and I have a serious situation here."

There was a pause before a voice finally answered.

"…You're not the only ones." Scar replied.

"I second that." Came steel's voice.

XXXX

_**Minutes earlier; Steel…**_

"What do we have here?" Steel muttered to himself as the brush of the forest gave way to his armor and Exo-Frame. His armored boots dug into the stiff earth and stone that littered the forest floor as he easily traversed the land.

In the pale blue glow of his HUD, Steel saw two red inverted triangles take up his field of view. He was getting closer but they were angled down from him indicating that the forest floor dropped away ahead of him. Steel also noted that one triangle was smaller than the other.

Curious.

But Steel didn't dwell on it as he quickly drew to a stop at a rocky ledge…with the target indicators right beneath him.

Looking down, Steel saw a sight that made him pause while tightening the grip on his M60. Steel had been a member of Fairy Tail for as long as he could remember. But it had only been a few years since he had actually been in combat…and in that time he had seen things that normally would make any normal man's head spin off. Lord knew he had contributed to half of the carnage he seen and inflicted.

But what he was seeing now….was something else entirely.

He saw a man with black spikey hair, a fit frame for his age and he was clothed only on a pair of baggy cargo pants.

But it was who or what the man was facing that drew Steel's attention.

The man was currently starring down what could only be described as a monster.

The thing was colored black and brown with a massive, hulking body. It stood on a pair of small but muscular legs but seemed to mainly be supported by arms that were almost as thick as the surrounding trees. It had pointed ears, feather like horns, a symbol that reminded him of a "power/on" button on a TV remote on its forehead (weird) and tusks on its lower jaw.

As much as Steel wanted to stand and ponder what exactly what he was looking at, the sound of the man's voice-he was saying the monster was a demon of some sort-snapped his attention to the task at hand. Blinking quickly, Steel racked his M60's bolt, brought the stock to his shoulder and centered his M145 sight on the monsters back.

He then cut loose with a short burst of armor piercing 7.62 NATO rounds.

And not a minute too soon.

The demon had suddenly broken out in a charge towards the man and Steel's burst hit him just as it was readying to attack the man. The bullets, although having little affect, did draw the demons attention as Steel leapt down from his position. Landing in a crouch, Steel slowly raised his head as Doriarte and Gray gawked at the newcomer.

"Hey," Steel said as he rose to his full height, "pick on someone your own size, freak."

"Who…"Gray said, "who the hell is that?"

Doriarte turned to face Steel and raised an eyebrow in confusion and annoyance. He regarded Steel with something akin to mild interest.

"Hey," Steel said, not taking his eyes off of Doriarte, "you alright?"

"Yeah…fine." Gray replied, who was making his own observations of Steel.

"Good," Steel said as he raised his M60, "why don't you take a step on back while I handle big ugly here."

Doriarte suddenly chuckled deeply in a manner that suggested the whole situation was a big joke to him.

"What's so funny?" Steel asked only for Doriarte to let out a low howl that seemed to echo out throughout the woods. Steel thought he heard a high pitched whine somewhere in the howl.

ULTRASONIC FREQUENCY DETECTED; suddenly appeared on Steel's HUD.

"What?" Steel said just as Gray briefly disappeared in a puff of smoke only to be reveal that he had changed into a child…again.

"What the hell, I'm a kid again!?" Gray cried out in surprise.

"What in the nine hells!?" Steel said. Unlike Gray, he was unchanged by Doriarte's curse. This fact did not go unnoticed by the demon who grunted in confusion.

Steel and Doriarte locked gazes as a tense silence filled the area. It was broken when Steel snapped his M60 up and fired the machine gun from the hip at the demon who let out an angered cry as the bullets tore into him.

Bringing his arms up to block the bullets, Doriarte charged Steel only for the mercenary to duck low and leap away from the demon. He rolled to a stop, coming up on one knee and continued to fire his M60; hitting Doriarte in his exposed back.

"Who the hell is this guy?" Gray said as he ducked behind a frozen tree root for cover.

"Gray!" A voice called out from behind and the ice mage turned just in time to see Happy and Carla run out from the brush.

"Happy, Carla," Gray said, "You guys alright?"

"We were made little again." Happy said, slightly panicked before the gunfire and a roar from Doriarte caught their attention.

"What is that thing?" Carla asked, indicating the demon.

"That's Doriarte, he's the demon that made us all into kids again."

"A demon!?" Carla said, only to wince at the rapport of Steel's M60.

"What is that!?" Carla said, "Who is that!?"

"I don't know," Gray said as he watched Steel dodge a blow from the demon, "he just showed up out of nowhere and started blasting that guy with that machine gun of his."

"Is he a demon too?" Happy asked.

"I don't think so." Gray said as he watched Steel drop his M60 for a second in order to deliver an Ex0-Frame powered straight punch to Doriarte's face. Surprisingly the attack had some effect.

"Whoever he is…there's something about the way he moves that's…familiar." Gray said as his eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean Gray?" Happy asked.

"I'm not sure." Gray replied.

"Take this!" Steel said as he fired his M60 again only to see the same results as before.

"Damn it," Steel hissed, "his hide's too tough for the bullets. They're making him bleed but he's not going down. This thing is one tough son of a bitch."

Doriarte charged again and brought his fist up, intent on smashing Steel down.

"Look out!" Gray called out.

With no time to react Steel brought his arms up to block the attack as the demons fist connected with his arms. The ground beneath Steel's feet shattered as his knees bent from the force making Steel grunt slightly. Luckily, had Steel been any other man, he would've been turned into a pancake. But, his Exo-Frame had absorbed and redirected the impact of the attack and Steel was left relatively unharmed. He would feel it in the morning however.

Seeing that Steel wasn't down for the count, Doriarte raised his other hand to slam Steel down only for the contractor to quickly draw his Desert Eagle from his thigh rig and empty the magazine into Doriarte's face. The .50 caliber bullets punched through the demons tough outer hide, tusks and exposed fangs. Crying out in pain, the demon stumbled back and was met by two DM-51 high explosive grenades Steel had quickly tossed out from his little crater.

The grenades detonated within a second of each other and twin plumes of dust were tossed up amongst the shower of debris. Slowly, Steel poked his head and M60 out of the crater as he carefully scanned his environment. His threat indicator was nowhere to be seen on his HUD…which wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Slowly pulling himself up and out, Steel scanned the area for the demon.

"Where are you?" Steel said to himself, "Where are you?"

The cracking of ice from above made Steel snap his head up and see Doriarte plummeting down towards him. Steel snapped his gun up and opened fire but the demon continued to fall.

"Oh no!" Carla said, "He'll be crushed!"

"_There's got to be a way to beat him!"_ Gray thought, _"There has to be a way to stop this guy!"_

The falling ice caught Gray's attention and the gears in his mind started crank a mile a minute.

"_The ice,"_ Gray thought as he broke cover, _"that's it!"_

"_Earlier when I got him to crash into those ice covered bushes, he seemed to be hurt by the ice. For whatever reason, the ice harms him and if I can manipulate the power of the ice from the Sun Village, I can use it to take him down."_

Gray charged forward and slammed his hand down on the ground while casting his free arm out and aimed at Doriarte. He drew upon the magic of the ice that covered the land and channeled it into a super charged attack.

"Use my body as a vessel!" Gray called out, "Go through me!"

And like a bolt of lightning, the ice shot forth and hit Doriarte just as he was about to crash down upon Steel. As if a switch had been hit, Doriarte's curse was instantly undone and Gray, Happy and Carla found themselves back to normal. Doriarte himself came crashing down a few yards away. For his part, Steel kept his eyes and M60 trained on the fallen demon, his back to Gray.

"Hey," Steel said, "you alright?"

"Yeah…I'm fine." Gray said, "Thanks for the save back there."

"Don't mention it." Steel said just as Doriarte began to chuckle in an amused fashion as he locked eyes with Gray.

"You're the one who opened it up…hell's gate that is." The demon said.

"What are you blabbering about now?" Steel asked but the demon ignored him.

"It can't be undone…and-" Doriarte said before he was cut off when a large winged creature with a single, large eye swooped down and chomped down on the demon, startling all present.

"AHHHH!" Happy and Carla screamed, "IT'S BACK!"

"Oh for the love God, why am I not surprised?" Steel grumbled before drawing two more DM-51's, quickly popped the pins and lobbed them into the creatures still open mouth.

Half a second later, the grenade detonated and the monsters body seemed to bulge outwards for a second before its eye rolled up into its head and it keeled over on its side.

"Well, that solves that." Steel said as he rested his M60 on his shoulder.

"Whoa…" Happy said.

"Man he didn't even flinch." Gray said as Steel began to turn around to face him and the exceed.

"Hey," Gray said, "Thanks for the help, you showed up at just the right time."

"You don't have to thank me," Steel said, "I already…told…you?"

Steel became ramrod straight as he locked eyes with Gray. His shoulders began to shake, as did his hands, as his M60 threatened to slip from his grip.

"Hey…you alright?" Gray asked.

"G-Gray?" Steel said, "How…you…aren't you with…?"

"How do you know my name?" Gray said as the warning bells went off in his head, "I never told you my name!"

Before Gray our the exceed could react, Steel had snapped his M60 back to his shoulder and aimed at Gray's head, startling the mage at how fast he shouldered the large machine gun.

"HANDS IN THE AIR!" Steel barked, "SHOW ME YOUR HANDS RIGHT NOW!"

XXXX

_**Elsewhere; Scar…**_

The forest gave way to a more open, rocky area but that did nothing to rid the ice that covered the land. Scar found it very odd that despite the heat of the summer day, the ice was still cold to the touch. And it made tracking the person he was following all the more harder.

The ice left little in terms of boot prints so he had to follow the broken vegetation of his environment.

And then he had found the boots of whoever he was fallowing.

So…that meant the person was now walking barefoot…on ice…lovely.

Plus there had been that weird ultrasonic frequency alert. Just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

Just another thing to add to the list of weird shit that was happening today.

Scar let out an irritated sigh and scanned the area from the top of the boulder he stood on. He had lost the trail and he was hoping to spot whoever it was he had been following. The slight glare from the ice wasn't helping matters either.

"How I'm supposed to find anyone around here is beyond me. Damn it, I could really use a satellite scan right about now." Scar said to himself.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, Scar saw movement. Turning, he saw a man walking down an ice covered pathway about seventy five or maybe eighty yards away from him. Rather than dig out his binoculars, Scar raised his F2000 and flipped down the 3x magnified sight. The man, from what Scar could see, was tall and wore a scarf around his neck and had…pink…hair…

Scar lowered his rifle and his eyes narrowed behind his mask.

"What the hell?" Scar said aloud.

The man he just had in his sights looked eerily similar…to himself.

"_It couldn't be."_ Scar thought, _"There's got to be an explanation to this."_

Wanting answers to assuage the chill growing in the pit of his stomach, Scar pointed his rifle away from him, Scar fired off a round and let the shot echo out. The other man instantly paused and his head snapped around to figure out where the shot had come from. It was then that he noticed Scar and through his 3x sight, the contractor watched the man take either a combative or defensive stance.

Scar lowered his rifle and raised his free hand in a waving manner. He did this for several moments before the man returned the gesture. He then beckoned the man to him and then hopped down from the boulder, setting off at a slight jog.

Time to see what the hell was going on.

As the man drew closer, Scar came to a stop and decided to let the man come to him. And the closer the man got, the more shocked Scar became. He was dressed differently, a few years younger-most likely seventeen or eighteen-but he had the same face, same spikey pink hair and fit muscular frame.

Scar found himself looking at a mirror image of himself.

It was mind boggling to say the least.

"Oi!" Natsu said, snapping Scar out of his shock, "Who the hell are you?"

Scar didn't answer…he simply stared.

"You one of those treasure hunter punks that attacked us earlier?" Natsu said. The guy in front of him didn't look a thing like those treasure hunters but then again, those guys were pretty weird themselves.

Scar still didn't answer and that didn't bode well for Natsu's temperamental nature.

"Oi!" Natsu said, "You deaf or something!?"

Scar slowly increased the grip on his rifle and he brought his left hand to grip the under barrel launcher. Natsu tensed and closed his hands into fists.

"You trying to start a fight or-"

_**BANG!**_

The spent casing fell away from the F2000 as Scar kept the rifle angled up from his hip. Natsu felt a stinging pain on the right side of his cheek. Touching his fingers to the burning skin and pulling them away, Natsu saw the blood that coated the tips from the small cut the bullet had left.

"Don't move." Scar said, his tone low and tight.

"What the hell was that for!?" Natsu raged as fire began to form on his hands.

Scar however brought his rifle to his shoulder in warning and aimed for Natsu's head.

"Don't." Scar said, "Move."

Natsu starred down Scar as neither made to move. Natsu inhaled and exhaled quickly through his nose. His dragon slayer senses enhanced the world around him. He didn't need to look at the guy in front of him to know the guy was tense and ready for a fight. Through his flames and the tinge of gunpowder, Natsu could smell the adrenaline course through the guy's veins.

…Wait a minute.

This guy's scent…there was something weird about it.

He smelled like…like…

"Me," Natsu whispered, "Why do you smell like me?"

Scar didn't answer.

"Who are you?" Natsu said and got the same response. Irritated and confused, Natsu snapped at Scar.

"Who the hell are you!?"

Scar's radio suddenly crackled to life and the contractor used his free hand to answer it.

"Scar do you copy?" Grim's voice echoed over the radio, "Frost and I have a serious situation here."

Scar was silent for a moment as he regarded Natsu who stood shaking in fear and confusion. He then answered radio.

"…You're not the only ones." Scar replied.

"I second that." Came steel's voice over the radio.

Scar let his hand drop away from radio and continued to stare at Natsu.

"Who am I?" Scar finally said after a long pause.

"Well…why don't you tell me-"

Scar unclipped his helmet from his mask while still keeping his rifle trained on Natsu. He then let his helmet fall off his head as he pushed his face mask up to reveal his face. Natsu promptly gasped in shock.

"-Natsu Dragneel." Scar said.

"Y-You…y-you!" Natsu stuttered out in shock.

"It would seem that we have much to talk about…as I'm sure we both have questions for one another." Scar said as he looked into the frightened eyes of himself.

XXXX

A/N: Well ladies and gentlemen, what do you think? This took me a while to work on but I was finally able to crank it out for yall.

So we're starting to see doubles here as the two worlds meet up. Next chapter, things will tone down a bit as small two to three part arc begins before we get back into the action.

Once again, I'm sorry for the lengthy delay but I've been super busy because of the holidays and what not. I'm just busy, that's all and I will do my best to update my stories as best as I can to make up for the absences. The next story to be updated after this will be _When the END comes_ and after that, it's back to _Vendetta_.

I hope you guys will bear with me and be patient with this story like you have before. That's all that I ask.

Next time; CHAPTER 3: The Awkward Calm Pt.1

As per usual, if you guys have any comments or questions, please put it in your review and I'll make sure to respond to you in the next chapter. If you have anything else that you wish to ask me or clarify, you can PM me and I'll do my best to respond ASAP.

Until next time; read, review, happy reading and most importantly; HAPPY NEW YEAR!


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